South Korea's National AI Strategy Committee met French global AI company Mistral to discuss public-private AI cooperation between South Korea and France.

On April 3, the committee said full-time Vice Chair Lim Moon-young (임문영) and Ha Jung-woo (하정우), presidential secretary for AI Future Planning, met Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch. The meeting took place at Mensch's request while he was visiting South Korea alongside President Emmanuel Macron.

Lim and Ha exchanged views on detailed implementation measures for the "AI strategy package" agreed at a South Korea-France summit in November and on ways to strengthen partnerships for South Korea's push to become an "AI G3". The two sides shared the view that securing sovereign AI is central to national competitiveness in the AI era as U.S.-China rivalry intensifies.

Lim said South Korea is working to build an independent foundation model based on world-class semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. He stressed that Mistral AI's philosophy of "efficiency" and "openness" is fully aligned with South Korea's AI strategy.

Mensch highly praised the "AI G3" strategy and set out concrete ideas and a strong will to execute plans to create global AI business opportunities with South Korea.

The meeting also raised expectations that combining South Korea's AI semiconductor technology with Mistral AI's flexible and powerful models could secure full-stack AI competitiveness that enables expansion from an Asia base into European markets.

The committee said it will expand communication with overseas governments as well as companies to strengthen the global AI competitiveness of South Korean firms and advance the AI industry ecosystem.