French AI lab Mistral AI announced on Tuesday that it has secured €3 billion (roughly $3.58 billion) in funding, giving it a post-money valuation exceeding €21 billion (about $24.39 billion)—confirming earlier speculation. The Series D round, which Mistral describes as “the largest equity fundraising round ever completed by a European technology company,” was spearheaded by Samsung Electronics, with the EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund and existing investor PSG Equity joining as co-leads.

Mistral says the fresh capital will be directed toward scaling its compute capacity, building out infrastructure, accelerating commercial growth, and broadening its international presence. The funds may also help sharpen its identity—the company insists it isn’t aiming to create a European ChatGPT, and even though its models haven’t broken into the mainstream, it still sees itself as an AI research lab at its core.

This investment will support a nuanced strategic pivot aimed at addressing concerns across Europe and beyond about over-reliance on the United States for technology, particularly as political tensions around AI regulation and products intensify on the American side. Beyond its goal of developing 1 GW of compute capacity in Europe by 2030, Mistral rolled out tools in August that allow customers to choose where their AI queries are processed geographically. It has also begun hosting third-party, open-weight AI models—including Chinese ones—to strengthen its position as an AI services provider that gives clients control over which models they use and how they deploy them.

On Tuesday, the company framed its frontier research as “the foundation underpinning its infrastructure, products and sovereignty,” a statement that may indirectly counter critics who saw its decision to host Chinese models as a sign it was becoming just an inference provider. Mistral’s emphasis on global ambitions also appears aimed at dispelling the misconception that its scope is limited to France. The lab now operates across 20 countries, and its go-to-market approach leans toward helping governments and corporations harness AI while maintaining a sense of control—unlike other frontier labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which sell their models more widely.

That strategy has fueled high expectations for Mistral as a French tech champion, and Samsung’s entry into its cap table comes with the blessing of French authorities. In a post on X, President Macron noted that the round reflected France and South Korea’s shared ambition of “building a third way in AI.”

The fact that Mistral’s fundraising warranted such a remark underscores the geopolitical dimensions that have surrounded the company, mostly working in its favor. With rising demand for sovereign AI infrastructure, not being an American company has reportedly given Mistral’s revenue a boost. At the same time, the sheer capital needed to rival leading U.S. labs simply isn’t available within France alone. Yet with Dutch chipmaker ASML as a major partner and investor—and now Samsung on board—Mistral appears to have carved out a third path, not unlike the merger of Germany’s Aleph Alpha with Canada’s Cohere.

Mistral continues to collaborate with U.S. players, especially Microsoft, through a strategic partnership the two companies significantly deepened in July. The new Series D also attracted American investors: existing backers like a16z, Nvidia, and Salesforce Ventures participated, alongside new supporters Advent and BlackRock. Still, with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg joining as a fresh backer and numerous existing European investors doubling down, the AI lab’s cap table remains decidedly international—and that may be precisely what appeals to the customers Mistral is chasing.