San Francisco-based Databricks, a Data and AI company, on Thursday, announced an investment and partnership with Paris-based Mistral AI, a company specialised in generative artificial intelligence.
The announcement comes six months after Databricks raised $500M (approximately €469M) in a Series I round of funding at a $43B (approximately €40B) valuation.
Databrick x Mistral AI: What you need to know
As part of the partnership, Databricks customers can access native Mistral models through the Databricks Marketplace.
Also, they can experiment with these models in the Mosaic AI Playground, use them as optimised model endpoints through Model Serving, and tailor them to their specific data requirements.
For the unknown, Mosaic AI enables organisations to securely and cost-effectively integrate their enterprise data into the AI lifecycle. It is built on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.
The partnership also allows integration of Mistral’s AI models with the Databricks platform, making them readily available for use.
It includes the powerful Mistral 7B transformer model and Mistral 8x7B, an SMoE model that supports multiple languages and delivers lightning-fast performance.
Additionally, Mosaic AI Model Serving can integrate Mistral models, optimising deployment, SQL model inference, and model customisation for better performance in specific tasks or domains.
Databricks: Unifying data, analytics, and AI
Founded by the original creators of Delta Lake, Apache Spark, and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world’s toughest problems.
The Databricks Lakehouse unifies data, analytics, and AI on a single platform so that customers can govern, manage, and derive insights from enterprise data and build their generative AI solutions faster.
As per the company’s claims, more than 10,000 organisations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, and over 50 per cent of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics, and AI.
Mistral AI: Developing generative AI
Founded by Timothée Lacroix, Guillaume Lample, and Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI specialises in generative artificial intelligence.
The company aims to develop new models of generative artificial intelligence for companies, combining scientific excellence, an open-source approach, and a socially responsible vision of technology.
Arthur Mensch, Founder and CEO of Mistral AI, says “We are delighted to forge this strategic alliance with Databricks, reaffirming our shared commitment to the portability, openness, and accessibility of generative artificial intelligence for all. By seamlessly integrating our models into Databricks’ data intelligence platform, we are advancing our shared mission of democratising AI. This integration marks an important step in extending our innovative solutions to Databricks’ vast customer base and continues to drive innovation and significant advances in AI. Together, we are committed to delivering accessible and transformative AI solutions to users worldwide.”
Last month, Mistral AI received a €15M investment from Microsoft as a part of a deal that allows Azure customers to access Mistral’s models through Azure’s model catalog. However, the European Commission scrutinised the deal to assess its potential impact on competition and innovation in the AI market.
