French AI startup Mistral unveiled a new AI model yesterday, ending a gap of about five months between major releases, and said it outperforms many rival open-weight models.
The three-year-old company, widely viewed as Europe’s strongest AI challenger to US and Chinese competitors, has not released a new model since May. In August, it began offering third-party models to customers, starting with Beijing-based Z.ai’s GLM 5.3.
“The model we’re actually announcing today is actually above the Chinese models on certain aspects, including cyber. So the narrative that Europe cannot compete is something that is not true,” CEO Artur Mensch said at a launch event in Abu Dhabi, without specifying which Chinese models or benchmarks he was referring to.
Mistral said Le Chonk, officially named Mistral Large 4, will be made publicly available on October 27.
Before the release, cybersecurity experts and government authorities will be given access to a version with fewer safety restrictions to test its capabilities, the company said.
Pierre Stock, Mistral’s vice president of science, said the model ranks among the strongest open-weight, systems available.
Open-weight means users can download the model from platforms and run it on their own hardware. Many Chinese models are open-weight, while top US models tend to be closed and accessible only through their developers’ infrastructure.
Stock said the model had tried to go beyond its testing environment, but that this was expected and the company was able to prevent it.
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