How will Mistral Compute – a new player in the European cloud Sovereignty – play along with EuroStack?

In last February’s blog, SelFou.digital wrote:

Feudal, Oligopoly or Sovereign? What will tomorrow’s digital economy look like?

Interesting how the sovereign clouds are back again – or did they ever leave? That might be the question… We then spoke of the structural changes required in Europe to avoid the technological dependency on the US with regard to cloud-based providers, and why solutions like the EuroStack are required to balance an economy which, according to Forester, will reach $16.5 trillion and capture 17% of global GDP by 2028 for 14 countries across North America, Europe, APAC, and Latin America.

And now Mistral Compute

According to Arthur Mensch, CEO and co-founder of Mistral AI, Mistral Compute represents a significant strategic shift for Mistral from purely developing AI models to controlling the entire technology stack. It is a comprehensive AI infrastructure platform designed to give European enterprises and governments an alternative to relying on U.S.-based cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

SelFou.digital wonders:

How does Mistral Compute and EuroStack fit within an European sovereign vision?

One angle is sure to please Mariana Mazzucato (and others) who speaks in her article Public value and platform governance of ecological impacts of data dependencies.

‘In a recent barometer dedicated to the environmental impact of digital services, the digital agency Razorfish, in collaboration with the Green IT collective, highlighted the ecological footprint of generative AI interfaces. Among these technologies, Mistral AI stands out for its energy efficiency, surpassing its American counterparts such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. The study reveals that Mistral AI is particularly economical, minimizing the use of precious resources such as water and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This notable performance underscores its crucial role in the quest for more sustainable artificial intelligence.’

Visibly, this is an angle that Mistral AI already knew and wants to promote as, on its website, we found the following:

‘Mistral Compute addresses two major concerns about AI development: environmental impact and data sovereignty. The platform ensures that European customers can keep their information within EU borders and under European jurisdiction. The company has partnered with France’s national agency for ecological transition and Carbone 4, a leading climate consultancy, to assess and minimize the carbon footprint of its AI models throughout their lifecycle. Mistral plans to power its data centers with decarbonized energy sources.

“By choosing Europe for the location of our sites, we give ourselves the ability to benefit from largely decarbonized energy sources,” the company stated in its announcement.’

This all sounds promising, and SelFou.digital really looks forward to finding out how this landscape will evolve. And of course, will keep you posted.

In the meantime, we are working on our next blog that we hope to have soon. It will speak about how Physical AI will change our landscape. So long for now and keep up the great work!

Best, as always, your SelFou.digital Team