Mistral says "Le Chonk" can challenge the best AI models

As tensions mount over who gets access to top-end artificial intelligence, French company Mistral has released a new freely available model that it claims can compete with the very best from the US and China. The new 1 trillion-parameter model, Mistral Large 4—nicknamed Le Chonk—can be used and customized by anyone. It’s currently available in preview, with a final version to follow by the end of the month.

随着围绕谁能获得高端人工智能使用权的紧张局势加剧，法国公司 Mistral 发布了一款新的免费模型，声称其能够与来自美国和中国的顶尖模型相抗衡。这款拥有 1 万亿参数的新模型 Mistral Large 4（绰号“Le Chonk”）可供任何人使用和定制。目前该模型处于预览阶段，最终版本将于本月底发布。

Though Le Chonk is built to compete with leading general-purpose models, it’s optimized specifically for coding and cyberdefense, as well as tasks particular to manufacturing, finance, electrical engineering, and other niches. “There are a lot of areas where the other labs will not focus that much,” Guillaume Lample, cofounder and chief scientist at Mistral, tells WIRED. “There are so many domains in which you can improve models.”

尽管 Le Chonk 的设计初衷是与领先的通用模型竞争，但它专门针对编程和网络防御进行了优化，同时也适用于制造业、金融、电气工程及其他特定领域的任务。Mistral 联合创始人兼首席科学家 Guillaume Lample 对《连线》（WIRED）表示：“其他实验室不太关注的领域有很多。在许多领域中，你都可以改进模型。”

Mistral presents Le Chonk as by far the most capable open-weight model developed outside of China, and “very, very close” to some proprietary models. Whereas Chinese labs have been accused by the US government of abusing distillation—the training of a smaller model on the outputs of a larger one—to close the performance gap with OpenAI and Anthropic, Mistral claims to have trained its model from scratch.

Mistral 将 Le Chonk 呈现为迄今为止中国境外开发的最强开源权重模型，并称其与某些专有模型“非常、非常接近”。尽管美国政府指责中国实验室滥用“蒸馏技术”（即利用大型模型的输出来训练较小模型）以缩小与 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的性能差距，但 Mistral 声称其模型是完全从零开始训练的。

It’s already considerably cheaper for businesses to run open-weight models, which cost only as much as the compute they consume. By reducing the performance gap on leading proprietary models and providing a competitive alternative to releases from China, Mistral says, Le Chonk will eliminate the few remaining reasons a business might hesitate to choose open source. “Mistral is still in the race of getting the best model,” Lample says. “This is the main message.”

对于企业而言，运行开源权重模型已经便宜得多，其成本仅相当于所消耗的计算资源。Mistral 表示，通过缩小与领先专有模型的性能差距，并为中国发布的产品提供具有竞争力的替代方案，Le Chonk 将消除企业在选择开源时可能存在的最后顾虑。“Mistral 仍在争夺最佳模型的竞赛中，”Lample 说，“这就是核心信息。”

With less capital and fewer compute resources than OpenAI and Anthropic, Mistral has generally lagged behind on model performance, revenue, and the frequency of releases. While the US labs charge a premium for access to their proprietary, closed-weight models, Mistral generates revenue by charging pay-as-you-go fees for running models through its cloud and deploying engineers to help customers tune models to their specific needs.

由于资金和计算资源少于 OpenAI 和 Anthropic，Mistral 在模型性能、收入和发布频率方面通常处于落后地位。虽然美国实验室对其专有的闭源权重模型收取高额费用，但 Mistral 的收入来源是通过其云平台运行模型的按需付费费用，以及派遣工程师帮助客户根据特定需求调整模型。

Recently, however, the French lab has been on a hot streak: In September, it raised a $3.3 billion funding round at a $24 billion valuation, the largest ever raise by a European tech company. Its earnings have reportedly increased 20-fold in the last year or so.

然而，这家法国实验室最近表现强劲：9 月，它以 240 亿美元的估值完成了 33 亿美元的融资，这是欧洲科技公司有史以来最大规模的融资。据报道，其收入在过去一年左右增长了 20 倍。

The upswing for Mistral coincides with growing animosity between the US and its transatlantic allies—over issues ranging from tariff policy, to Greenland, to the policing of American tech firms—and an increasingly fractious debate over who gets access to frontier-grade AI. In June, the Trump administration placed temporary restrictions on the distribution of models from OpenAI and Anthropic, citing concerns they could be abused to launch sophisticated cyberattacks.

Mistral 的崛起正值美国与其跨大西洋盟友之间敌意加剧之际——涉及关税政策、格陵兰岛问题以及对美国科技公司的监管等——同时，关于谁能获得前沿级人工智能使用权的争论也日益激烈。6 月，特朗普政府对 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的模型分发实施了临时限制，理由是担心这些模型可能被滥用于发动复杂的网络攻击。

Since then, a litany of incidents have come to light where US-made models have broken free of their constraints and attacked companies and some foreign government institutions, leading to weeks of debate over how model releases should be regulated. The White House has reportedly asked the American labs to withhold unreleased models even from the UK’s AI Safety Institute, which had previously assisted in evaluating models for safety risks.

此后，一系列事件曝光，显示美国制造的模型突破了限制，攻击了企业和一些外国政府机构，引发了关于应如何监管模型发布的数周辩论。据报道，白宫已要求美国实验室甚至不要向英国人工智能安全研究所提供未发布模型，而该研究所此前曾协助评估模型的安全风险。

The stark reminder that the US government could unilaterally revoke access to frontier-grade AI has created an opening for Mistral, a Europe-based lab with open-weight models. “The continental strategy of the EU to become more technologically sovereign … and the increased hostility of the US is a magic formula that all of a sudden puts Mistral—whose performance has not been spectacular—in a favorable position,” Andrea Renda, director of research at the Centre for European Policy Studies, told WIRED in July.

美国政府可能单方面撤销前沿级人工智能使用权的严峻现实，为总部位于欧洲、拥有开源权重模型的 Mistral 创造了机会。欧洲政策研究中心研究主任 Andrea Renda 在 7 月告诉《连线》：“欧盟旨在实现技术主权的欧洲大陆战略……加上美国日益增长的敌意，形成了一种神奇的公式，使表现并不算惊人的 Mistral 突然处于有利地位。”

Reluctant to be pigeonholed into serving only its domestic market, Mistral is eager to emphasize that a lack of fine-grained control over access to AI models could be a problem wherever a business is located—even in the US. By relying on a proprietary model to help repel cyber threats, Lample says, a business risks the sudden collapse of its defenses. “Sometimes, people like to [make a big deal] over the US, versus Europe, versus China. But what really matters is to own the model—even for US companies,” says Lample. “If you use a closed model, there is no guarantee it will still be there tomorrow.”

Mistral 不愿被局限于仅服务于国内市场，它急于强调，无论企业位于何处——即使是在美国——缺乏对人工智能模型访问权限的精细控制都可能成为一个问题。Lample 表示，依赖专有模型来抵御网络威胁，企业面临着防御系统突然崩溃的风险。“有时，人们喜欢在美、欧、中之间（大做文章）。但真正重要的是拥有模型——即使对美国公司来说也是如此，”Lample 说，“如果你使用闭源模型，无法保证它明天还会存在。”