Mistral had the best small models on consumer GPUs for a while, hopefully Ministral 14B lives up to their benchmarks.
Had they gone to the EU, Mistral would have gotten a miniscule grant from the EU to train their AI models.
There is a bit of it, yes, although how much exactly is difficult to know. It’s not all tax breaks and subventions; several public agencies are using it, including in the army so finding out the details is not trivial.
2. ASML was propped up by ASM and Philips, stepping in as "VCs"
Isn't that then a chicken and egg?
No. VC’s historical capital has come from institutional investors. Pensions. Endowments. Foundations.
2. Did ASML invest in Mistral in their first round of venture funding or was it US VCs all along that took that early risk and backed them from the very start?
Risk aversion is in the DNA and in almost every plot of land in Europe such that US VCs saw something in Mistral before even the european giants like ASML did.
ASML would have passed on Mistral from the start and Mistral would have instead begged to the EU for a grant.