French AI company Mistral unveils open-weight model Mistral Large 4, aiming to rival US and Chinese competitors

On October 6, 2026, French AI company Mistral AI announced the public preview of its new open-weight model, Mistral Large 4, also known as "Le Chonk." The company claims it will be the most capable open-weight AI developed outside China, with strong cybersecurity and defense capabilities. Mistral positions the model as a European alternative, emphasizing sovereignty in the global AI race. The model was trained on 4,000 NVIDIA GPUs in European data centers and supports over 160 languages. Its weights are due for public release on October 27, 2026. The announcement follows Mistral's recent €3 billion funding round, the largest ever for a European tech company.