HASt the threshold of the 2000s, when the Internet bubble was in full swing, we used to speak of “Internet years” to describe the acceleration of time. An Internet year was worth ten times a normal year. We must believe that artificial intelligence (AI) projects us even further into this rush of time. Barely a year ago, we were still amazed to see start-ups raising tens of millions of euros a few years after their creation, or even, for some, reaching the spectacular valuation of a billion euros. In AI, we now count in weeks and months.
Created in April, the very young Mistral AI managed to raise 105 million euros just six weeks after its birth. And six months later, this Sunday, December 10, it announced that it had completed a new funding round of 385 million euros. According to the Bloomberg agency, this operation would value the company at nearly 2 billion euros. Never seen. For comparison, Google was created in 1997 and, given its immediate success around the world, managed to raise $25 million in funds two years later.
This current frenzy is due to three factors. First, the appearance of ChatGPT in November 2022 fascinated the whole world with its dizzying performance, demonstrating the maturity of this technology. Then, the very high-level skills necessary to manipulate these concepts and software are very rare, which reinforces the value of the lucky ones, like the three founders of Mistral AI, mathematical experts who started out at Meta and Google. And, finally, because the development and training of these artificial brains requires billions of calculations and therefore extraordinarily expensive computer time.
World Race
Faced with the Promethean promises of this machine intelligence, States and companies are moving in two opposite directions, one to try to regulate the behavior of these new mechanical geniuses and the other to try not to be left behind in the world race. France is therefore betting big on Mistral AI and the ecosystem that already exists around it and its counterparts. University research centers, a new calculation laboratory, and capital flowing in, both from the United States and France, coming from both specialized financiers and large companies who do not want to miss the train. Even if it means relegating to the background European desires for excessive regulation. France and Germany agree not to hinder their emerging champions. The rules of the game will come later…