Mistral Large 4 is an open-weight multimodal model with 1.05 trillion parameters

A New Open Model from France

Mistral Large 4 has been released as a public preview by Mistral AI, the Paris-based artificial intelligence company. It is an open-weight model, meaning researchers and developers can study and build upon its code and weights, unlike many competitors whose full details remain hidden ¹. The release is labeled version 26.10 and became available on October 6, 2026 .

What Makes It Different

Mistral Large 4 uses a technique called Mixture of Experts, where only certain parts of the model activate for each task rather than running the entire system every time. This allows it to be both powerful and efficient. It has 52 billion active parameters that actually process each input, out of a total of 1.05 trillion parameters that make up the whole system ¹. It also includes a 1.6 billion parameter vision encoder, which means it can understand images in addition to text .

Mistral’s Growing Position

Mistral has grown significantly since it was founded on April 28, 2023, by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix ². As of September 2026, the company has a valuation of $24.7 billion, making it the most valuable AI company in Europe . It now employs over 1,000 people .

In July 2026, Microsoft signed an agreement worth several billion dollars with Mistral to develop European computing capacity, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro ². Earlier, in September 2025, ASML — Europe's largest tech company by market capitalization and a key supplier to the semiconductor industry — invested €1.3 billion in Mistral, taking an 11 percent stake .].

Mistral’s existing models include Mistral Large 3, Codestral-2508 for coding tasks, Mistral OCR 3 for reading documents, and its chatbot Vibe (formerly called Le Chat) ². The company is seen as a key player in the European Union’s push for digital sovereignty, aiming to reduce dependence on American and Chinese AI firms .

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Corrections and updates

Corrected on 21 October 2026. An earlier version said ASML was the Netherlands' largest tech company; the source states it is Europe's largest tech company by market capitalization.

Key facts

Mistral Large 4 has 52 billion active parameters and 1.05 trillion total parameters
It is an open-weight multimodal model with vision capabilities
Mistral is valued at $24.7 billion as of September 2026
Microsoft signed a multi-billion dollar deal with Mistral in July 2026
ASML invested €1.3 billion for an 11 percent stake in 2025