It’s not every AI company that can count the French president as its top salesman.
On June 11, 2025, the founder of French AI company Mistral took to the stage alongside Jensen Huang, the powerful CEO of chip giant Nvidia, to announce a partnership between the two companies. As President Emmanuel Macron joined them, the Taiwanese-American executive turned to Mistral’s young CEO Arthur Mensch and said something just audible to the Parisian audience of techies and public officials: “Your president worked really hard for you.”
The Nvidia boss was referring to the deal his company had just sealed with Mistral to roll out AI infrastructure across Europe. “I told the president that Arthur and Mistral needed support from France’s biggest companies. Mr. President said to me: ‘Which ones? Let me call them!’” Huang said.
By the time the deal was official, the companies could announce that BNP Paribas, Orange, SNCF and Thales had all expressed interest in the partnership — boosting Mistral’s official entry into the global race for computing power.
Even for the head of Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, such presidential proactivity was remarkable, illustrating the French government’s dedication to championing its homegrown startup and showing how Mistral has leveraged ties to the executive branch in Paris to try and reach the level of some of the biggest generative AI companies.
