Microsoft-Mistral AI Partnership Draws EU Scrutiny Amid Concerns Over Cloud Dominance and Lobbying Influence
• Microsoft partners with Mistral, an OpenAI rival, to offer Mistral's AI models on Azure cloud platform. This came with a 15M euro investment in Mistral.
• The deal has drawn scrutiny from EU regulators concerned about Microsoft's dominance in cloud computing and potential to influence EU AI regulations.
• EU lawmakers question if Mistral's lobbying for looser AI laws was influenced by its ties to Microsoft. This underscores complex dynamics between governments, big tech, and regulations.
• Controversy touches on broader debates about "European champions" in tech and concentration of money/power from such partnerships.
• Mistral announces Mistral Large, a new large language model akin to OpenAI's GPT-4, but will be a closed model only available through an API.