Mistral AI & NTT to Shape Secure, Sustainable Private AI

NTT DATA has announced a new partnership with Mistral AI — one of France’s most high-profile AI startups and widely seen as Europe’s strongest challenger to OpenAI. 

The collaboration will see both companies work together to build a European-made AI sovereign ecosystem for enterprises across Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The joint mission is to build secure, sustainable and sovereign AI ecosystems that empower enterprises — especially in regulated sectors — with solutions tailored to regional values and regulatory demands.

The urgency for AI sovereignty

Thanks to geopolitical tensions, strict data privacy demands and the dominance of US and Chinese technology giants, Europe is facing a wave of pressures. 

Sovereign AI — where a region gains end-to-end control over the development, deployment and governance of AI — has become a strategic imperative for maintaining technological independence and safeguarding sensitive data.

For enterprises, this means reducing reliance on foreign black-box solutions, aligning with the EU’s AI Act and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and gaining the assurance that their data — and their customers’ data — remain under local jurisdiction.

With this in mind, Mistral AI and NTT DATA’s partnership will initially concentrate on the following key areas:

• Joint development of secure and sovereign AI: The collaboration will construct robust and private AI systems with a focus on sustainability and security. These will be designed specifically for organisations in highly regulated fields, including financial services, insurance, defence and the public sector, delivering comprehensive, full-stack offerings from infrastructure to AI-powered business processes for deployment within clients’ private cloud environments.
   
• Pioneering AI-powered customer experience and infrastructure: The partners will lead the infusion of Mistral AI’s advanced technologies into NTT DATA's existing customer experience platforms. The initial emphasis will be on deploying agentic AI solutions within contact centres across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The alliance will also explore the joint creation of large language models for specific linguistic regions, driving AI innovation that is customised for local markets and specialised requirements.
   
• Accelerated Go-To-Market and regional expansion: Mistral AI and NTT DATA will collaborate on crafting and implementing targeted go-to-market plans, customised for the distinct market conditions of countries such as France, Luxembourg, Spain, Singapore and Australia. The partnership will provide a complete service lifecycle — from initial use-case conception and model customisation through to full implementation and ongoing managed support. Specialised sales forces will be established to focus on core client priorities.

“Collaborating with Mistral AI to bring trustworthy, impactful AI to market aligns with NTT DATA’s mission to accelerate client success and positively impact society through responsible innovation,” says Abhijit Dubey, CEO of NTT DATA. 

Abhijit will also become NTT DATA’s Chief AI Officer alongside his CEO role from September.

He adds: “By joining forces with Mistral AI, we will harness the power of high-performing AI models combined with NTT DATA’s comprehensive AI capabilities, including our Smart AI AgentTM Ecosystem. 

“In doing so, we can assure secure, scalable and sustainable deployments for enterprises across the globe.”

Laying  Europe’s AI foundation

To spearhead innovation and ensure best-in-class execution, NTT DATA will create a dedicated Mistral AI Center of Excellence, staffed with specialised experts and focused personnel. 

Additionally, Mistral AI will introduce a comprehensive programme for technical training and certification specifically for NTT DATA’s teams.

This, both companies hope, will position them as powerhouses driving meaningful action across Europe and sophisticated AI solutions for enterprises globally, rather than solely being part of an agreement on paper.

“By collaborating with a global leader in digital transformation like NTT DATA, we will bring our next-generation AI solutions into real-world business applications, with a strong focus on organisations that need the highest standards of data privacy in their AI journey,” says Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral AI.