- Samsung is said to be looking at a €1 billion investment in Mistral. This funding round could put the French AI lab’s value at about €20 billion.
- Talks began just a day after Samsung brought its robotics projects together under a new unit led by the CEO, aiming to find partners for foundation models.
- Back in September 2025, Mistral was valued at €11.7 billion. If this deal goes through, its value would almost double in less than a year.
According to the Financial Times, Samsung is discussing an investment of hundreds of millions of euros in Mistral. This round could value the French AI lab at around €20 billion, based on sources close to the talks.
Samsung might put in about €1 billion. Sweden’s EQT is also said to be considering joining through its Scaleup Europe Fund.
A new robotics unit was set up just the day before
The timing stands out. On July 21, 2026, Samsung brought its robotics projects together into a new division called RX, which reports to device experience chief TM Roh, according to CNBC.
Samsung says it will keep investing in promising startups and hiring experts in Robot Foundation Models. These models help robots decide what to do, not just how to move.
Right now, Samsung doesn’t make its own large language models. Its Galaxy AI uses Google’s Gemini. If the Mistral deal happens, it would be Samsung’s first direct investment in a foundation model lab outside of Google.
This move comes as Samsung makes robotics AI a top priority for its CEO, backed by a reported 60 trillion won (about $40.7 billion) investment in manufacturing in South Korea’s Yeongnam region.
Mistral’s focus on independence is drawing interest from outside the West
In the last three years, Mistral has worked to ease worries about relying on outside technology. Founded in 2023 by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix, the company’s biggest shareholder is ASML. Mistral has also made deals with Microsoft for computing power and, according to Tech Funding News, built its own European data centres instead of depending only on US cloud providers.
This strategy is often called promoting European independence. Even though Samsung isn’t European, investing in a lab that isn’t tied to one government’s export rules shows a similar goal. This comes after the US temporarily blocked European access to two Anthropic models on June 12, 2026, before reversing the decision on July 1, an action Anthropic addressed directly in its own statement.
That episode made European buyers more worried about depending on just one country for advanced AI.
What’s confirmed and what’s still up in the air
No deals have been finalised yet. Mistral’s value has changed in past funding rounds.
Earlier in 2026, reports mentioned numbers both lower and higher than today’s estimate, like about $10 billion in talks with Abu Dhabi’s MGX, a round TFN covered at the time, and nearly €20 billion. Samsung has also talked about big plans for robotics before, but hasn’t set clear targets, as shown in its April 2026 statement about possible investments and acquisitions.
If the deal ends up close to €20 billion, Mistral’s value would be almost twice what ASML paid in September 2025. TFN has followed this trend since Mistral’s earlier talks with MGX. It’s still not clear if Samsung is most interested in robotics, global strategy, or getting more bargaining power with Google. This uncertainty is what makes the deal stand out
