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July 22 (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of euros in the AI start-up Mistral, as part of a fundraising round that could value the group at roughly €20 billion ($22.81 billion), Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources.
Samsung could invest about €1 billion in the new round, the report said, adding that Swedish investor EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund is in talks to back the fundraising round.
In April, Samsung said it would considerinvestment and acquisitions where necessary to accelerate development and commercialisation in robotics, while combining partnering local companies for technology development.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Samsung and Mistral did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This comes after Microsoft agreed to spend billions of dollars on Mistral's computing infrastructure in Europe under a deal that will also expand distribution of the French AI startup's technology through the U.S. cloud and software giant, the companies said on Tuesday.
There is a growing interest in Europe and elsewhere to reduce dependence on U.S. technology so other countries may have greater say in their future society and economy.
Mistral supplies the French military and has positioned itself as a European alternative to U.S. technology giants at a time when governments in the region are pushing for greater technological independence.
Its valuation remains dwarfed by U.S. peers such as Anthropic.
Separately, a U.S. decision last month paused foreign access to two advanced models from San Francisco-based Anthropic has made technology independence a more urgent issue in Europe.
($1 = 0.8767 euros)
(Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
