Airbus, BMW Partner with Mistral AI as Europe Pushes for AI Independence

European aerospace giant Airbus and German automaker BMW have announced separate partnerships with French startup Mistral AI as European companies increasingly look for alternatives to US-based AI providers.

According to a joint statement released on May 28, Airbus will collaborate with Mistral AI to expand the use of AI across its aviation, defence and space businesses. The partnership will allow Airbus to access Mistral AI’s products and research teams to develop custom AI systems for aerospace operations.

The companies said the collaboration would focus on “trusted” and “secure” AI systems, especially for sensitive defence and aerospace applications.

Catherine Jestin, Executive Vice President Digital at Airbus, said, “This partnership paves the way for the deployment of high-impact, high-value use cases of trusted and responsible AI in aerospace.”

Airbus and Mistral AI plan to work on AI-powered engineering simulations, onboard AI systems for aircraft and spacecraft, automated technical documentation and edge AI systems capable of running directly on hardware to support flight safety and object recognition.

The partnership will also explore defence-related applications such as cyber investigations and coding support in highly secure environments.

“Together, we will deploy Mistral’s fully integrated AI stack to accelerate innovation, contribute to improving flight safety, and deliver greater value for customers,” noted Timothée Lacroix, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Mistral AI.

The announcement comes as European companies and institutions grow increasingly concerned about their dependence on US-based AI firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, particularly over data sovereignty and security risks.

On the same day, BMW announced a separate partnership with Mistral AI focused on improving crash simulations and vehicle development through AI.

Dr Franz Decker, CIO and Senior Vice President of the BMW Group, said, “For the BMW Group, the use of industrial data is a key factor in translating artificial intelligence into value creation.” He added that by combining their engineering datasets with Mistral AI’s model training capabilities, the company is building specialised AI which supports complex development tasks.

The automaker noted that it currently conducts thousands of virtual crash tests every week and has accumulated more than one petabyte of historical simulation data over the years. 

The collaboration comes as global automakers increasingly adopt AI across manufacturing, autonomous driving research, safety systems and vehicle development to reduce costs and accelerate production cycles.