ASML, Stellantis, Airbus & BMW: Mistral's Manufacturing AI

AI is growing fast, but it comes with a few caveats in manufacturing. 

General models are often not specialised enough for industrial purposes, but giving away proprietary data to make specialised tools can be a dangerous choice.

A flurry of partnership announcements with European company Mistral AI have been made, including some major manufacturers.

Airbus and BMW Group announced partnerships with the business on 28 May, and previous announcements include Stellantis and ASML. 

What is Mistral AI?

Mistral was founded in 2023 by AI researchers Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix.

Headquartered in Paris, France, it has large language models (LLMs) with both open-source and proprietary AI models. 

Its first fundraising round reached €105m (US$117m) and just one year later it had raised €600m (US$645m).

Microsoft invested US$16m in 2024 and ASML invested US$1.5bn in 2025. 

In 2026, Mistral raised US$380m to build new data centres and acquired Paris-based startup Koyeb to strengthen its cloud infrastructure. 

Other companies that announced Mistral partnerships on 28 May include TCS and EDF. 

It has previously partnered with companies including Veolia, Capgemini, Dassault Systèmes, Tesco, HSBC and BNP Paribas.

Mistral AI and Airbus

Airbus says that its partnership with Mistral will support ambitions to place "cutting-edge, ethical and trustworthy AI at the core of Airbus operations and processes". 

The company is involved in defence and space activities alongside commercial aircraft and helicopters, which face struct security and sovereignty requirements. 

Under the agreement, Airbus will acquire licences for the full Mistral AI product suite and is guaranteed access to leading researchers and influence over the AI product roadmap. 

“This partnership paves the way for the deployment of high-impact, high-value use cases of trusted and responsible AI in aerospace,” says Catherine Jestin, Executive Vice President Digital at Airbus.

“Thanks to the high-performance models and made-to-measure support of Mistral AI experts, we are building the foundations necessary to power our current and future products and services, enabling us to serve our customers better.”

Airbus says the companies have already identified areas for collaboration and some work has already begun. 

One of these is automating technical document production for commercial aircraft and helicopters.

Accelerating design cycles and providing ad-hoc support to engineers was also identified as a potential use case.

Timothée Lacroix, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Mistral AI, says: “We are proud to partner with Airbus and contribute to its critical industrial operations."

BMW's partnership with Mistral AI

BMW Group's partnership announcement focuses on AI for crash simulation and use of industrial datasets for AI model training. 

“For the BMW Group, the use of industrial data is a key factor in translating artificial intelligence into value creation,” says Dr. Franz Decker, CIO and Senior Vice President of the BMW Group.

“By combining our engineering datasets with Mistral AI’s model training capabilities, we are building specialised AI which supports complex development tasks.”

BMW says that it runs thousands of virtual crash simulations each week. This has created more than a petabyte of crash simulation data, with insights into vehicle structures and material behaviour. 

The company says it is focused on large industry models (LIMs), which are systems trained on specific engineering and simulation data. 

ASML's investment

ASML is a major investor in Mistral, leading its Series C funding round with US$1.5bn in 2025. 

The funding round valued Mistral AI at roughly US$14bn, giving ASML a stake of approximately 11%. This also granted it a seat in the startup's Strategic Committee. 

“The collaboration between Mistral AI and ASML aims to generate clear benefits for ASML customers through innovative products and solutions enabled by AI, and will offer potential for joint research to address future opportunities,” said ASML President and Chief Executive Officer, Christophe Fouquet.

“We believe that this strategic partnership with Mistral AI, which goes beyond a traditional vendor-client relationship, is the best way to capture this significant opportunity.”

Mistral says that initial use cases in this partnership include AI agents for early downstream issue detection and software reliability, automation of technical product documentation and large-scale log analysis for root-cause identification in diagnostics.

Stellantis and Mistral AI

Mistral and Stellantis began working together in 2024 on projects across vehicle engineering, fleet data analysis, internal car sales and manufacturing.

The companies announced an AI-powered in-car assistant in 2025.

Stellantis is also working with Mistral to develop and evaluate a Bill of Materials Data Intelligence tool, designed to help engineers identify, compare and optimise part selections, maximising reuse and efficiency.

Alongside this, Mistral's technology is being evaluated for real-time anomaly detection in manufacturing.

“There are many players in the AI space, and we’re particularly happy to partner with Mistral AI for its strong ability to adapt quickly and drive meaningful results in a highly collaborative way,” says Ned Curic, Chief Engineering & Technology Officer at Stellantis.

“This partnership is an important step in our commitment to making GenAI more accessible and valuable,” says Arthur Mensch, CEO and Co-Founder of Mistral AI.

“Stellantis’ bold approach to technology and its ability to integrate advanced AI into real-world driving experiences make it an ideal partner to showcase how Mistral AI’s versatile solutions can reinvent mobility and empower engineers in their work.”

TCS, EDF, Dassault Systèmes and more

As part of Mistral's partnership with TCS, it has become the first "global systems integrator" for Mistral Forge, a system for enterprises to build AI models grounded in proprietary knowledge and domain-specific data. 

This work will focus on sectors including manufacturing, banking, healthcare and the public sector, where trusted AI is critical.

EDF has partnered with Mistral to enhance efficiency and performance in engineering, maintenance and construction activities for future EPR2 nuclear reactors. 

Some of Mistral's products, including Le Chat Enterprise and AI Studio, are available on Dassault Systèmes’ OUTSCALE sovereign cloud. 

“By leveraging Dassault Systèmes’ sovereign infrastructure and industrial solutions, we are advancing our shared mission of driving the use of cutting-edge generative AI for all," Arthur says. 

Tesco signed a three-year agreement with Mistral in December 2025, giving the retailer full access to its commercial models including future developments.

It includes a commitment for the companies to work together through a joint AI lab, where tech experts from both businesses will co-create new generative AI solutions. 

“By leveraging Dassault Systèmes’ sovereign infrastructure and industrial solutions, we are advancing our shared mission of driving the use of cutting-edge generative AI for all," Arthur says. 

Tesco signed a three-year agreement with Mistral in December 2025, giving the retailer full access to its commercial models including future developments.

It includes a commitment for the companies to work together through a joint AI lab, where tech experts from both businesses will co-create new generative AI solutions.