Microsoft and Mistral AI announce new partnership to accelerate AI innovation and introduce Mistral Large first on Azure

The AI industry is undergoing a significant transformation with growing interest in more efficient and cost-effective models, emblematic of a broader trend in technological advancement. In the vanguard is Mistral AI, an innovator and trailblazer. Their commitment to fostering the open-source community and achieving exceptional performance aligns harmoniously with Microsoft’s commitment to develop trustworthy, scalable, and responsible AI solutions.

Today, we are announcing a multi-year partnership between Microsoft and Mistral AI, a recognized leader in generative artificial intelligence. Both companies are fueled by a steadfast dedication to innovation and practical applications, bridging the gap between pioneering research and real-world solutions.   

This partnership with Microsoft enables Mistral AI with access to Azure’s cutting-edge AI infrastructure, to accelerate the development and deployment of their next generation Large Language Models (LLMs) and represents an opportunity for Mistral AI to unlock new commercial opportunities, expand to global markets, and foster ongoing research collaboration.

Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI is focused on three core areas: 

1. Supercomputing infrastructure: Microsoft will support Mistral AI with Azure AI supercomputing infrastructure delivering best-in-class performance and scale for AI training and inference workloads for Mistral AI’s flagship models.  
2. Scale to market: Microsoft and Mistral AI will make Mistral AI’s premium models available to customers through the Models as a Service (MaaS) in the Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning model catalog. In addition to OpenAI models, model catalog offers a diverse selection of both open-source and commercial models. Azure’s AI-optimized infrastructure and enterprise-grade capabilities offer Mistral AI additional opportunities to promote, sell, and distribute their models to Microsoft customers worldwide. 
3. AI research and development: Microsoft and Mistral AI will explore collaboration around training purpose-specific models for select customers, including European public sector workloads. 

Expand your AI functions with Azure and Mistral AI

In November 2023, at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft unveiled the integration of Mistral 7B into the Azure AI model catalog accessible through Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning. We are excited to announce Mistral AI’s flagship commercial model, Mistral Large, available first on Azure AI and the Mistral AI platform, marking a noteworthy expansion of our offerings. Mistral Large is a general-purpose language model that can deliver on any text-based use case thanks to state-of-the-art reasoning and knowledge capabilities. It is proficient in code and mathematics, able to process dozens of documents in a single call, and handles French, German, Spanish, and Italian (in addition to English).

This latest addition of Mistral AI’s premium models into Models as a Service (MaaS) within Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning provides Microsoft customers with a diverse selection of the best state-of-the-art and open-source models for crafting and deploying custom AI applications, paving the way for novel AI-driven innovations.

Microsoft is committed to supporting global AI innovation and growth, offering world-class datacenter AI infrastructure, and developing technology securely to empower individuals with the skills they need to leverage AI effectively. This partnership with Mistral AI is founded on a shared commitment to build trustworthy and safe AI systems and products. It further reinforces Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to enhance our AI offerings and deliver unparalleled value to our customers. Additionally, the integration into AI Studio ensures that customers can utilize Azure AI Content Safety and responsible AI tools, further enhancing the security and reliability of AI solutions. 

Source: azure.microsoft.com