Samsung Electronics is closing in on a €1 billion investment in Mistral AI that would value the Paris-based startup at roughly €20 billion, nearly doubling its September 2025 valuation.
The deal reflects a pattern playing out across the AI chip market. Samsung commands the global high-bandwidth memory sector — a critical component for training large models — and securing ties with a fast-growing AI lab locks in demand for its products as competition with SK Hynix and Micron intensifies.
EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund, Novo Holdings, and Santander are also reported to be in talks to join the investment, which signals growing European institutional interest in homegrown AI infrastructure.
Mistral, launched in 2023 by researchers from DeepMind and Meta, has positioned itself as Europe’s answer to US frontier labs with its open-weight models and Le Chat assistant. The company is building Nvidia-powered data centers across Europe and recently closed $830 million in compute infrastructure funding.
For Samsung, the move mirrors a broader trend: hardware giants investing directly in AI labs to secure chip demand. SK Hynix has pursued similar strategies, and the race to lock in high-margin memory contracts is reshaping how chipmakers approach relationships with AI companies.
