Portrait — 9 facts about Arthur Mensch, the French prodigy of generative AI

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At just 32 years old, Arthur Mensch is already at the head of a small empire. The engineer by training is the co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI, considered the European champion of generative artificial intelligence (AI), and one of the most promising startups in the sector.

A prestigious academic career

Born on July 17, 1992 in Sèvres in Hauts-de-Seine, Arthur Mensch followed a prestigious academic path. After attending the École Polytechnique, Télécom Paris and the École Normale Supérieure, he obtained a doctorate at the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) and the University of Paris-Saclay, under the supervision of Bertrand Thirion and Gaël Varoquaux, two brilliant researchers. His research has focused on computational neuroscience, a field that explores the interactions between computer systems and cognitive processes.

Arthur Mensch moved to DeepMind

In 2020, Arthur Mensch joined DeepMind, Google's sister company specializing in artificial intelligence, where he worked on flagship projects such as AlphaGo and AlphaFold.

” Working at DeepMind was a revelation, it was like looking into a technological kaleidoscope. Every day offered a new perspective on what AI could become! ,” he explained in an interview with World. In 2022, he is part of the teams responsible for developing a competitor to ChatGPT, while OpenAI's conversational agent takes the world by storm.

Noting that companies are becoming less and less open about their internal research on major language models, the engineer decides to leave the American giant.

His startup defends an open vision of AI

This is the beginning of an entrepreneurial adventure that quickly becomes successful. Alongside Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, Arthur Mensch founded Mistral AI in the spring of 2023. In just over a year, the young French startup has raised three major fundraising rounds, valuing it at more than $6 billion in June. Giants like Microsoft, Salesforce and Nvidia are investing in the company, which has even established an agreement with the Redmond firm.

Unlike many of its competitors, Mistral AI defends an open vision of artificial intelligence. Its models are open source, meaning they are made available to the public to be used, modified and distributed freely. Developers, researchers and companies can therefore customize them according to their specific needs. Speaking to France Info, Mensch describes Mistral Large, its most powerful model, as ” one of the best in the world for reasoning “.

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Big aspirations with Mistral AI

The entrepreneur thinks big. With Mistral AI, he imagines he can leapfrog the Silicon Valley giants with more efficient ways to build and deploy AI. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal a few months ago, he set the tone: “We want to be the most capital-efficient company in the AI ​​world. That’s our raison d’être ».

Commitment to European values

The openness of Mistral AI’s models is part of Arthur Mensch’s deep commitment to “ European values ”. At World, he confided that he wanted his company to “reflect our European values, combining innovation and respect for the individual“.

The engineer is also a fervent defender of ethical and responsible artificial intelligence, insisting on the importance of developing technologies that take into account social and ethical impacts.

Arthur Mensch sits on the government committee on AI

Established in October 2023, the first government committee on AI aimed to « present concrete proposals within six months in order to adapt the Government's strategy on artificial intelligence “. As CEO of the most recognized French startup in the field, Arthur Mensch sat on it. A role that also allowed him to influence discussions around the AI ​​Act, the European text that governs the deployment and use of AI.

He advocates for a relaxation of labor law

The entrepreneur makes no secret of it: he advocates for greater fluidity in the labor market, taking the United States as an example in particular.

«The ideal world for a startup is that everyone is well paid, that you have to remain efficient to stay in the startup and that if the latter wants to steal employees from its larger competitors, it can do so more easily “, he explained during an intervention reported by BFMTV.

He is among the 100 most promising personalities of Time

The famous American weekly recently published its ranking of the 100 most promising personalities. Arthur Mensch is listed in the ” Innovators ” category of this list that “recognizes emerging leaders in health, climate, business, sports, and more.”

« Arthur’s work as CEO of Mistral AI (…) has placed him at the intersection of key trends that will make AI more accessible to billions of people », praises Elad Gil, author of his profile in the magazine.

Arthur Mensch is one of the wealthiest startup leaders in France

With a fortune estimated at 3 billion euros, Arthur Mensch, as well as the other co-founders of Mistral AI, Thimotée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, are the wealthiest startup leaders in France, according to Challenges. This sum corresponds to their respective shares in the young shoot, which has seen its valuation explode in just a few months.

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