Microsoft, which already owns a stake in OpenAI, this week announced a minority partnership with France’s Mistral, the ChatGPT developer’s European competitor.
Mistral announced the release of two language models, Mistral Large and Mistral Small, at the same time as Microsoft’s announcement. It says it aims to bring both open and commercial models to Azure.
Microsoft, for its part, will provide both the hardware and cloud infrastructure to train and run Mistral’s future systems.
However, the move has drawn criticism, with European Commission regulators currently investigating Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, as well as investigating the move’s potential to stifle competition.
“rage”
Some European politicians have been outspoken in criticizing the Microsoft-Mistral deal, saying it goes against the recently agreed AI law.
Hailed as a “launching pad for EU start-ups”, the law will protect European consumers and businesses from unsafe AI systems and ensure the latter do not need to raise funding from outside the EU. It is an object.
Ironically, the French government was one of the most vocal critics of the law in its original form. They argued that the regulation would stifle innovation and force European companies to invest abroad.
Kai Zenner, office director and digital policy advisor to Axel Voss, a member of parliament from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), said: euronews next“We are very furious because for months the French government has been asserting European leadership and saying that these companies should be able to scale up without the help of Chinese or American companies.” is.”
Zenner said Mistral had lobbied the French government during negotiations over the text of the AI law, arguing that if it didn’t get its way, it would be forced to work with companies like Microsoft.
“Now they are listening to every wish and doing it anyway, which I think is completely ridiculous,” he said.
The French government said it first learned about the Mistral-Microsoft partnership on Monday. However, if it turns out that the two companies were in talks during the drafting of the AI law, Mistral could also become a target of investigation.
Google criticizes ‘walled garden’
In a second surprising irony, Google Cloud VP Amit Zavery accused Microsoft of building a cloud monopoly.
“They’ve created this whole walled garden that’s completely controlled and owned by Microsoft, and they don’t do these things,” Zaveri, who works for a company that owns 80% of global search, said this week. I’m sure there are customers who would like to do it.” Only go to Microsoft. ”
Microsoft is the most popular cloud provider in the UK, but globally it lags behind AWS. Google ranks third in the domestic market and fourth in the global market (after Alibaba Cloud).
