AI company Mistral is latest European startup to eye expansion in Silicon Valley

Mistral, one of Europe’s most valuable AI startups, has been touted by French President Emmanuel Macron as proof the region can compete in the cutthroat AI race currently dominated by the US and China.

But Europe alone may not have the talent and capital to keep budding AI giants from expanding elsewhere.

Mistral, which creates open-weight large language models, is building an office in Palo Alto, California, and one founder is considering moving to the new office from Paris, the Financial Times reported.

It is hiring AI scientists, engineers, and sales staff in the area, according to job listings reviewed by the FT.

With the Western expansion, Mistral can tap into the talent and customer pool the Bay Area offers, but it must also compete more closely with bigger and better-funded companies like Google and OpenAI, which have been plucking employees from startups in recent months.

The news follows other Silicon Valley moves from European tech companies, including London’s 11x AI, which develops automated personal assistants. Mistral has already gotten its feet wet in Silicon Valley, with funding contributions from Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, Salesforce, and Microsoft in the last year.