Mistral’s new 1T model aims to leapfrog closed and open rivals
French AI lab Mistral AI has unveiled Mistral Large 4, a one-trillion parameter multimodal model designed to compete with major American and Chinese AI labs. The company plans to release the model weights as open-source after a three-week safety testing period.
Why it matters
Mistral's approach represents a 'third way' in AI development, balancing the transparency of open-source models with the performance of closed-source systems.
The race between open and closed AI is on, and Europe is still in the mix. On Tuesday, French AI lab Mistral AI has released Mistral Large 4 , a new large multimodal model aiming to leapfrog both American and Chinese rivals — following what French president Macron has described as “a third way in AI.”
Amid a growing divide between closed models that can be unplugged and open models that are often made in China, Mistral is positioning ML4 as an alternative to both. Nicknamed Le Chonk in reference to its one trillion parameters, ML4 is definitely not small; but is not an open-weight model yet. For the time being, it can only be accessed via a public guardrail endpoint, but Mistral plans to make its weights available in just three weeks, after safety testing is complete.
Also covering this story
4 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
Reflection AI launched its first open-weight model, Beam
Beam: Reflection's 501B open-weight model
What is Beam? The buzzy American AI model being called the 'DeepSeek of the West'
Mistral Says Its New AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Is the Best Open-Weight Offering Outside of China
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