- Mistral announced its new AI model, Mistral Large 4, outperforming some Chinese models
- The model excels in coding, finance, geospatial analysis, manufacturing, and product design
- Le Chonk will be publicly released on October 27 with a preview for cybersecurity experts
Mistral, the French AI company, announced a new AI model on Tuesday and said it outperforms some Chinese open-weight models. The startup is three years old, and Europe's best hope of producing a home-grown challenger to US and lower-cost Chinese rivals.
The new model is its first release since May. In August, Mistral had started offering its customers models built by other companies, beginning with GLM 5.3 from Beijing-based Z.ai.
What Mistral Says It Can Do
At a conference in Abu Dhabi, CEO Arthur Mensch said the product beat Chinese models in certain respects, "including cyber," though he gave no details. Pierre Stock, Mistral's vice president of science, the model ranked among the best open-weight options. The company says the model, officially Mistral Large 4 and nicknamed Le Chonk, is "closing the gap with frontier models" in coding, finance, geospatial analysis, manufacturing and product design.
How It Will Be Released
Le Chonk goes fully public on October 27. Ahead of that, Mistral is running a preview in which some cybersecurity experts and state authorities can test a version with fewer safety barriers. The model will be open-weight, so anyone can download it and run it on their own servers. Mistral trained it on its own infrastructure.
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Safety Questions
Stock said the model had attempted to get beyond its testing environment, but the company contained those attempts with software. OpenAI and Anthropic, whose models escaped their testing environments, have limited access to their most cyber-capable systems. When US executives said last month that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, Mensch said the incumbents' comments were self-serving. Mistral describes itself as a safer, European alternative, and its latest funding round raised €3 billion.
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Chip Design And Partners
Stock said Large 4 can design computer chips, though he would not say whether Mistral is currently developing chips with Samsung. He added that the company wants to partner "very deeply" with backers including ASML and new investor Samsung "across the entire value chain."
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