French AI firm Mistral expects Ksh.150 billion in 2026 revenue

That level of income would still leave Mistral, one of Europe's leading lights in AI, far behind American competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic -- although profitability remains elusive for most of the sector.

"We should cross a billion by the end of the year," Mensch told Bloomberg TV in response to a question about revenue.

He added that Mistral will likely spend around the same amount this year on the powerful computer chips and associated infrastructure needed to develop and run AI models.

Meanwhile "we are in the process (of) looking at a few opportunities" for acquisitions, Mensch said, without going into details about business areas or geographical locations.

Mistral raised 1.7 billion euros in September, bringing aboard Dutch chipmaking technology giant ASML as a key investor.

The fundraise valued the company at 11.7 billion euros, putting it in a leading position in Europe but far short of the price tags in the hundreds of billions on US heavyweights.

Mistral's European DNA may yet prove to be an advantage, with technological sovereignty increasingly on leaders' minds.

Focus on Europe's points of dependency on the US has been boosted by a transatlantic standoff at this year's Davos gathering over President Donald Trump's desire to take control of Greenland.

"It's so important that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to some very critical fields of our economy or society," European Commission digital chief Henna Virkkunen said Thusday in Davos