Naver Cloud and France's leading AI company Mistral AI signed a broad partnership agreement to jointly target the manufacturing AI market, they said on the 8th. The company said the deal is significant because, in an AI market being reorganized around U.S. big tech corporations, leading technology corporations in Asia and Europe are joining forces to build an independent sovereign AI business domain.
In particular, the two companies are already members of the "Nemotron alliance," formed by Nvidia with major global corporations, and share the same technology ecosystem. Based on this, they will pursue joint business focused on the manufacturing industry, where they expect the greatest synergy. They plan to target global manufacturing corporations with sovereign AI solutions optimized for Data Sovereignty and the industrial characteristics of European and Asian manufacturing sites, rather than U.S.-centric general-purpose AI.
Immediately after the contract, the two companies held a joint workshop at Naver's second headquarters, 1784, with key technologists participating and began drawing up plans to launch commercial services in manufacturing and an execution roadmap. They will continue R&D collaboration and technology exchanges among researchers to jointly identify AI tasks in industrial settings and create a virtuous cycle of verification and advancement in the field.
Mistral AI is a company that has proven, manufacturing-specialized AI capabilities in the global market through collaborations with major European manufacturing corporations such as Airbus, BMW and ASML. The two companies plan to combine their respective strengths to jointly introduce sovereign AI solutions to the global market that can be applied immediately on actual manufacturing floors.
As part of this cooperation, the two companies will also join hands in the domestic business. Through the Naver Cloud platform, Mistral AI's latest models and platforms, among other full-stack offerings, will be supplied, and Mistral AI's field dedicated engineers (FDE) will be dispatched directly to domestic client sites to provide technical support and resolve issues.
In particular, the first task is to apply to the Korean manufacturing environment proven manufacturing AI use cases that Mistral AI has accumulated on European factory floors, such as real-time quality anomaly detection and parts selection optimization. Through this, they plan to help domestic manufacturing corporations effectively leverage global-level manufacturing AI technologies in a secure environment where data is not exposed externally.
Kim Yu-won, CEO of Naver Cloud, said, "This partnership is practical business cooperation that combines Mistral AI's manufacturing-specialized technology, proven in global markets, with Naver Cloud's stable infrastructure," adding, "We will build successful references domestically and, based on that, continue to identify joint business opportunities in the global sovereign AI market."
Jeff Soon, APAC head of Mistral AI, said, "Naver Cloud is the optimal partner to realize the manufacturing AI business together," adding, "By combining Mistral AI's know-how accumulated on European factory floors with Naver Cloud's solid infrastructure, we will provide practical support for the AI transition of global manufacturing corporations, including those in Korea."