LIVE FROM MWC25 BARCELONA: Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch called on Europe to become increasingly competitive in AI, claiming the industry had received a wake-up call to reduce reliance on US technology and build local infrastructure.
In Tuesday’s opening keynote, the French start-up’s co-founder emphasised that European enterprises are re-evaluating their reliance on US technology due to “volatility” in the country. While acknowledging that the nation remains an important across many areas, he highlighted the need for a strong local AI ecosystem in Europe.
Mensch pointed to increasing momentum for AI projects across the continent, with enterprises showing greater ambition to integrate the technology. “Europe has a lot of things to offer on the infrastructure side,” he said, specifically pointing to the region’s credentials in the energy sector. He further touted AI as an opportunity to decentralise cloud computing to “make sure that there are more actors in the field”.
“It feels like the conversation around AI is in the US and China, and Europe sometimes gets left out of that conversation.”
Telcos as hyperscalers
Mensch continued to suggest there was potential for European telecom operators to invest in data centres and become hyperscalers, capitalising on existing fibre network assets to build AI-ready facilities.
“To build a data centre for AI, you need three things. You need the electronics, you need the fibres, and you need the chips. Telcos already have the fibres, so they’re already involved in the data centre discussions and so on.”
Encouraging domestic efforts to support data centre expansion, Mensch also highlighted Mistral’s work to establish facilities in its home market, France, where the “energy grid is excellent, prices are good, and the technical competences are also strong”.
“We’re also moving slightly down the stack so that we can actually serve data centres, and we would gladly partner with telcos on that domain.”
Expanding on his company’s projects, he touted Mistral’s ongoing collaboration with local operator Orange, focussed on building AI applications for predictive maintenance and network efficiency. He positioned AI as a key tool for telecoms operators to optimise network operations and reduce costs.
Regulatory concerns overblown
Mensch suggested that market fragmentation remains Europe’s biggest hurdle, downplaying concerns regarding overregulation. With multiple telecoms operators in individual countries, large-scale AI deployments are more complex.
However, he suggested that changes in US policy accelerated the bloc’s AI ambitions while pushing the European Commission to review its own approach, citing a need to transition beyond regulation to actively nurturing AI development in the region.
Yet, he remained optimistic about collaboration between European enterprises and AI providers. As AI becomes deeply integrated into consumer technology, “there are opportunities to make distribution partnerships with the telecom industry to make sure that everybody has access to strong AI systems”.