By Sam Schechner

PARIS -- Europe's most prominent artificial-intelligence developer is tapping the continent's biggest tech giant for cash to keep up in the global AI race.

Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML is pumping more than $1.5 billion into France's Mistral AI for an 11% stake, leading a round valuing the Paris-based startup at nearly $14 billion -- more than double its valuation last year. The ASML funds come as part of a roughly $2 billion round that Mistral says also includes Yuri Milner's DST Global and French state-owned investment bank Bpifrance.

The deal gives Mistral, founded in 2023, fresh firepower in its quest to develop cutting-edge AI models and data centers independent from its American competitors. But Mistral's funding and valuation trail those of its biggest Silicon Valley rivals by an order of magnitude. Anthropic last week closed a $13 billion funding round at a valuation of $183 billion.

Europe has put more emphasis on homegrown AI as tensions have grown with the U.S. over trade and tech policy. In February, Vice President JD Vance told a Paris summit that the U.S. was winning the race to build the best AI chips and algorithms, and intended " to keep it that way."

Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch has said he and his co-founders left Google and Meta Platforms in part to prove that Europe could challenge Silicon Valley on AI. Their plan is to remain independent by offering companies in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere a cost-effective alternative to companies like OpenAI or Anthropic, without turning to Chinese options like DeepSeek.

Mensch said in June that growing demand for Mistral's AI models put the company on pace to earn revenue of more than $100 million a year.

To be sure, Mistral has ties to the U.S. Its investors include American venture-capital firms like General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz and U.S. companies like Nvidia, all of which participated in this round. The company has offices in New York and Palo Alto.

But Mistral has become a cause célèbre in France's fight for European AI autonomy. Mensch has shared the stage on multiple occasions with French President Emmanuel Macron. The French president said he pushed French businesses to back Mistral's deal to buy 18,000 cutting-edge AI chips from Nvidia for a huge AI data center south of Paris.

"This is our fight for sovereignty, for strategic autonomy," Macron said at the time.

ASML is also a European champion. Based in Veldhoven, Netherlands, and with a market capitalization of more than $300 billion, it is the only company in the world that makes the lithography machines that etch the most-advanced AI semiconductors.

The company said Tuesday that as part of its 1.3 billion euro -- equivalent to roughly $1.5 billion -- investment in Mistral, it will partner with the company to use Mistral's AI models in its research, operations and products. It will also get a seat on Mistral's strategic committee.

"This investment brings together two technology leaders operating in the same value chain," Mensch said.

Write to Sam Schechner at Sam.Schechner@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 09, 2025 02:55 ET (06:55 GMT)

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