Samsung in Talks to Back France's Mistral as AI Funding Race Widens Beyond US Labs

Samsung is in talks to invest as much as €1 billion in Mistral, the Paris-based artificial intelligence (AI) company, in a round that would value the firm at roughly €20 billion, the Financial Times reported. The prospective backing from the South Korean electronics group would deepen the funding base of a company that positions itself as a leading alternative to US AI labs.

The Mistral round, sized at about €3 billion, would nearly double a valuation of €11.7 billion set less than a year ago, when the Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML took the largest stake. Existing investors include Nvidia and a group of American venture firms, giving the French company a shareholder base that spans Europe, Asia and the United States.

The competition to fund AI extends to China. Moonshot AI, whose Kimi K3 model prompted comparisons to earlier breakthroughs by its domestic rival DeepSeek, has accelerated its fundraising ahead of a planned initial public offering in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reported, and is seeking a new financing round as early as next month.

The pattern points to a global AI industry splitting into regional centers rather than consolidating around a few American firms. European and Chinese labs are drawing capital from strategic investors seeking exposure to models developed outside the US sphere, a diversification driven as much by national and industrial strategy as by expected returns.