ASML to Become Top Shareholder in France’s Mistral AI With $1.5B Bet: Report

Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML is set to become the largest shareholder in French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI, committing €1.3 billion ($1.5 billion) to the company’s latest fundraising, sources told Reuters.

The investment forms part of Mistral’s €1.7 billion (~$2 billion) Series C round, which values the firm at €10 billion ($11.7 billion) and cements its position as Europe’s most valuable AI company.

The deal, which is expected to give ASML a board seat, marks a rare alignment of two European technology leaders and comes as the EU pushes for greater tech sovereignty.

Mistral, often described as France’s AI champion, develops large language models that compete with those from U.S. giants OpenAI and Google. Founded in 2023 by former DeepMind researcher Arthur Mensch and ex-Meta scientists Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, the startup has quickly emerged as a key player in the global AI race.

ASML, the world’s sole supplier of EUV lithography machines—vital for manufacturing advanced chips—could integrate Mistral’s AI expertise to enhance its tools and products.

Mistral AI has rapidly grown with its ChatGPT rival Le Chat. The app hit 1 million downloads in two weeks and now led France’s iOS charts. Recent updates, such as deep research, multilingual reasoning, image editing, Projects, and Memories, bring it closer to full-stack AI competitors like OpenAI.