French AI startup Mistral is partnering with American data and software company Cloudera to integrate its models with Cloudera’s hybrid data platform over the coming weeks. Mistral said the arrangement will allow enterprises to deploy and train the models with proprietary data inside controlled environments.

The companies are targeting demand from highly regulated industries that are adopting increasingly capable artificial-intelligence models to streamline operations. Mistral said the partnership will also help meet growing demand for sovereign AI, meaning tools that enterprise customers can use while keeping their data under their control.

Cloudera gives Mistral access to an established base of those customers. The California-based company operates in nearly 100 countries and serves financial services, telecommunications, healthcare and life sciences, oil and gas, and public-sector clients. It also has customers in retail and manufacturing.

Founded in 2008 by former Google, Yahoo and Oracle employees, Cloudera provides software through which clients can oversee their data and deploy AI to cut costs, boost productivity and improve financial performance.

“We’re getting access to 30 exabytes of really differentiated, proprietary data,” Kamal Brar, Mistral’s senior vice president of partnerships and alliances, said in an interview. “Access to the base of those regulated customers is extremely important to us.”

Abhas Ricky, Cloudera’s chief business officer and general manager for applied AI, said regulated industries account for a large share of the company’s business.

“These are all highly regulated industries,” Ricky said in an interview. “Of course, we have a little bit of retail, we have a little bit of manufacturing as well, but a very significant percentage—over 65% to 70%—of our annual recurring revenue is tied to highly regulated industries.”

Large financial institutions, healthcare groups and government agencies are important customers for companies including ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Anthropic and Mistral because they can purchase AI tools at scale, providing AI labs with a steady revenue stream.

Demand for tools that keep enterprise data under client control is growing as regulation expands across industries, particularly in Europe. Mistral has said regulated companies need to control their data and customize models to understand the nuances of the industries in which they operate.

The partnership also reflects Mistral’s support for open-weight models, which are publicly available for anyone to download and modify. Mistral says those models let enterprises tailor the technology to their needs while protecting their data and intellectual property. Ricky said the Cloudera agreement reinforced both companies’ commitment to open weights and open source.

The announcement came days after Mistral completed a funding round led by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics that lifted the startup’s valuation above $24 billion.

Mistral has also expanded its distribution through other alliances. Last month, it broadened its collaboration with Microsoft to help enterprises adopt AI. In May, it partnered with San Francisco-based startup Harvey AI to bring Mistral models to law firms and in-house legal teams.

At the time of the Harvey AI agreement, Mistral Chief Revenue Officer Marjorie Janiewicz told The Wall Street Journal that the company wanted to strengthen its presence in regulated industries where customers need to control their data and customize models to better understand their operating environments.

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