By Leo Marchandon and Elizabeth Howcroft
PARIS, May 19 (Reuters) - Europe's leading artificial intelligence firm, France's Mistral AI, said on Tuesday it has acquired Vienna-based Emmi AI for an undisclosed sum, aiming to enhance its offering for industrial clients across Europe.
Emmi AI, which raised 15 million euros in Austria's largest funding round in 2025, specialises in models capable of handling complex physics such as airflow, heat transfer and material stress.
Industrial AI is playing a growing
role in Europe's re-industrialisation. The European Commission last October named manufacturing among the AI-critical sectors, as part of a push to cut the bloc's reliance on U.S. and Chinese technologies.
Mistral told Reuters the deal strengthens its core strategy around its European client base, looking to tap into engineering and manufacturing tasks, which it views as overlooked by the industry.
Mistral designs solutions around each client's needs, assembling multiple AI tools where one might monitor production for defects, another control a robotic arm, a third process logistics data, while all operate in coordination.
Adding Emmi's capabilities will allow these systems to simulate and interact with the physical world more precisely, it said.
The company cited its work with ASML, where Mistral-equipped EUV lithography machines now use vision models to detect engraving defects, cutting diagnostic times from hours to just eight minutes and minimising waste of costly silicon wafers.
"You just save 10 hours of downtime on very expensive equipment," ASML CFO Roger Dassen told shareholders at the company's April AGM.
The company, whose clients include Stellantis, Veolia and drone manufacturer Helsing, told Reuters that purpose-built models trained on company-provided data will outperform off-the-shelf alternatives trained on general datasets, and emphasised Europe's century of manufacturing expertise as an advantage.
CEO Arthur Mensch said in a statement that the acquisition should strengthen Mistral's position as a partner for manufacturers in sectors such as aerospace, automotive, and semiconductors.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris and Leo Marchandon in Gdansk, additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
