Written edition
Europe's carriers unite to build a Starlink rival from scratch
Today's stories share a quiet theme: incumbents and challengers alike are racing to control the infrastructure layer, not just the flashy end product, whether that's satellites, photomasks, or foundation models.
Meanwhile, robotics keeps proving that shipping is harder than promising.
Mistral raises €3 billion to build sovereign European AI
Mistral AI, the French foundation-model lab, has raised €3 billion to build large language models that run on-premise rather than through a cloud API, meaning European customers can keep training and deployment data inside their own borders. That sovereignty pitch matters because regulators and enterprises across the EU are increasingly wary of routing sensitive data through US-controlled infrastructure. The bet is that open-weight models, ones you can download and run yourself, can match closed rivals like OpenAI's on performance while offering the control that comes with owning the model outright. If it works, it reshapes who gets to set the terms for enterprise AI in Europe, not just which model wins on a leaderboard. It's also one of the largest single bets yet that data sovereignty, not raw capability, is the deciding factor for buyers.
