Airbus has signed a partnership with French artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI to expand the use of artificial intelligence in aerospace, defense and aerospace businesses.
According to a joint press release released Thursday, the European aviation giant aims to deploy artificial intelligence in commercial aircraft, helicopter, defense and space operations.
Under the agreement, Airbus will gain access to Mistral AI’'s full range of products and researchers, allowing the company to develop specialized AI tools for complex aerospace projects.
Airbus said the partnership will focus on “-trusted ” and “-trusted ” artificial intelligence, especially for sensitive defense and aerospace applications.
Catherine Jestin, Airbus vice president of digital, said in a statement, “This partnership paves the way for the deployment of high-impact, high-value use cases of reliable and responsible artificial intelligence in aviation, ” said.
Timothée Lacroix, Mistral AI co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, “Together, we will deploy Mistral’'s fully integrated AI stack to accelerate innovation, contribute to improving flight safety, and deliver more value to customers, ” said.
The partnership also gives Airbus’a Mistral’in access to its research teams and a certain level of influence over the company's product roadmap.
The two companies have identified several priority areas for cooperation. These include the discovery of AI systems that can be used in aircraft and spacecraft and the automation of technical document production, the acceleration of engineering design cycles through AI-driven simulations, and the development of edge AI capabilities (i.e. models that run directly on hardware) for applications such as automated object recognition to support flight safety.
They are also working on defense applications such as cyber investigations and coding support in high-security environments.
The two companies said they will work together in several key areas, including the development of artificial intelligence systems that can be used in aircraft and spacecraft.
They also plan to use AI-powered simulations to accelerate engineering and aircraft design processes.
The partnership will also explore the defense-related uses of artificial intelligence, including cyber research and coding support in highly secure environments.
Timothée Lacroix, co-founder and chief technology officer of Mistral AI, said the two companies will work together to accelerate “ innovation, contribute to improving flight safety and deliver more value to customers.
The deal came amid concerns about data sovereignty, security exposure, and American legislation's legal access to data stored in U.S. ’-owned infrastructure, as European became increasingly concerned about the dependence of companies and institutions on U.S.-based artificial intelligence providers.
CEO Arthur Mensch told CNBC’ that Mistral’ is also exploring designing its own chips and could eventually develop them, with the company turning to ’ to control more of its “ infrastructure while competing with ABD”'s heavyweights such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Established in Paris’te in 2023, Mistral AI has positioned itself as a European one alternative to U.S.-based AI providers, focusing on open-weight models and data sovereignty, which are likely to be predominantly factors in defense and aerospace purchasing decisions.
BMW also signs Mistral AI partnership
On the same day, BMW announced a separate partnership with Mistral AI focused on using artificial intelligence to improve collision simulations and vehicle development.
The German automaker said the collaboration will help accelerate complex engineering work and improve the accuracy of safety testing by training AI systems on BMW’'s vast archive of collision simulation data.
Every week, BMW conducts thousands of virtual crash tests and accumulates more than a petabyte of historical simulation data, which the company says can be used to develop industry-specific AI models for automotive engineering.
The agreement is part of a wider effort by European manufacturers to use artificial intelligence in industrial design, manufacturing and research.
