Mistral AI has signed a contract worth several billion dollars with Microsoft and will expand its computing infrastructure in Europe. SiliconANGLE reported on Tuesday (local time) that Microsoft Azure customers will soon be able to develop software using Mistral AI’s data centre in France.

The deal gives Microsoft additional data centre capacity for European AI customers. Heavily regulated industries have more options to replace U.S. companies’ models and computing infrastructure. Two major Mistral AI models were also added to the Azure Foundry model catalogue: Mistral Medium 3.5 and OCR 4.

Mistral Medium 3.5 is a weight-open model that can be fine-tuned and deployed in a managed Azure environment. OCR 4 is designed for structured document processing and automation, and for agent-style workflows that extract data from enterprise documents.

Companies can develop the same AI applications through Azure Foundry and Azure Local, then deploy them across multiple environments to meet region-specific data regulations, operations and connectivity requirements. European manufacturers can analyse production facilities and quality data locally while protecting intellectual property, and medical institutions can introduce AI workflows while complying with personal data protection and data residency rules.

The partnership also aligns with moves to strengthen Europe’s AI self-reliance. After the United States recently blocked some European allies from accessing major models from Anthropic and OpenAI due to security concerns, a push in Europe to reduce reliance on U.S. technology has gained momentum again.