Orange teamed with fellow French company Mistral AI to boost adoption of AI in Europe, with the pair pledging to work together to design the best network infrastructure to accommodate the technology.

In a statement, the companies described the partnership as groundbreaking, based on a shared ambition to bolster network infrastructure for AI.

R&D teams at both companies will “work hand-in-hand in a spirit of open innovation”, assessing the impact of large-scale, massive use of AI on telecoms networks worldwide.

Through the work, they plan to define technological roadmaps to “build the networks of tomorrow”, and address challenges related to connectivity and GPU availability. The longer-term goal is to ensure all customers have smooth and efficient access to advanced AI solutions.

Omnimodal AI
Orange explained 2025 marks the advent of omnimodal AI, an AI which integrates and analyses diverse data including voice, data and images. In this context, the operator’s infrastructure will need to evolve to guarantee better network quality and minimal latency, eventually paving the way for agentic AI.

In addition to research projects, Mistral AI and Orange will work on using the technology to improve the performance of current networks, aiding efforts around intelligent traffic management, predictive maintenance and repairs.

Furthermore, Orange will integrate Mistral’s applications into its service offerings, including AI assistant Le Chat Pro and code platform Codestral.

Christel Heydemann, CEO at Orange, said by joining forces with Mistral AI, “we are taking a major step towards establishing Europe as a global leader in AI”.

Counterpart at Mistral AI Arthur Mensch added the partnership is a significant milestone and will help to bring a shared vision around generative AI to life.

Summit
The partnership was announced at the same time as a two-day AI summit, hosted in Paris by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Yesterday (10 February), Macron announced around €110 billion in AI would be invested in the country over the coming years, as Europe seeks to compete with the US and China.