# Compute is Mistral's main gap to the leading AI labs

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/compute-is-mistrals-main-gap-to-the-leading-ai-labs/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Sagar Vaze](https://realalpha.app/people/sagar-vaze/) · Sagar Vaze is a research scientist at Mistral, leading the multimodal team.
- Host: [Theo Jaffee](https://realalpha.app/people/theo-jaffee/) · Co-founder & host, MTS · One of the first members of a16z's new media team; earlier hosted the Emergent Ventures-backed Theo Jaffee Podcast.
- Host: [Sophia Dew](https://realalpha.app/people/sophia-dew/) · Host, MTS
- Show: MTS
- Episode: [Why Closed AI Providers Block Cyber Defense | Sagar Vaze](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/), Oct 29, 2026
- Moment: 5:45 to 7:55 of the episode (2 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/compute-is-mistrals-main-gap-to-the-leading-ai-labs/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/?t=345

## Quote

> “we've convinced ourselves that we can **do more with less**.”
> — [Sagar Vaze](https://realalpha.app/people/sagar-vaze/) at [7:35](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/?t=455) · MTS

## Takeaways

1. Vaze says Mistral needs more compute to narrow the gap with leading labs.
2. He cites a 6 billion raise, but is unsure of the currency.
3. He frames the next step as doing much more with much more.

## About this segment

Sagar Vaze says compute is Mistral's main gap to leading labs; he cites a 6 billion raise but is unsure whether dollars or euros. He says the next step is doing much more with much more.

From “Why Closed AI Providers Block Cyber Defense | Sagar Vaze”, Oct 29, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[5:50](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/?t=350) So Mistral was founded in 2023. What do you think it would have taken for it to get there then? And do you think it's possible or desirable to get there now? Yes and yes to both, absolutely, unequivocally. What would have taken for us to get to the frontier in 2023 was us to be founded in 2020 or 2019. I think this is really the key difference between ourselves, a very new lab, and some of the more established players, which is we just started a few years later.

[6:19](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/?t=379) So we recognize that these labs are very capable models. the models that we've released today are actually state of the art in a bunch of key capabilities which are important to us finance, law, engineering some multimodal tasks close to my heart but even on the general agentic capabilities agentic coding where the best OSS model pushing the OSS frontier when it comes to saying what does it take to truly being catching up with OpenAI Anthropic this is absolutely on the cards That's absolutely the vision of Mistral.

[6:54](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/?t=414) This open weights category and closed weights category, it's a category that we seek to become closer and closer together. We don't want these things to have some delta in performance in the long term. And we think the thing that we need to get there is compute. So we've so far, I think, to date raised 6 billion, I forget, dollars or euros, one of the two, which is, I mean, a lot of money by traditional standards, But compared to what these other labs have raised, it's a drop in the bucket.

[7:25](https://realalpha.app/v/gJZLJSIEbtQ/?t=445) And what we've done is build confidence in ourselves, in our technical chops, in our scientific understanding, that with this amount of capital, we can make extremely capable models. As I said, frontier in many capabilities today. And so I think we've convinced ourselves that we can do more with less. And I think the next step is to do much more with much more. so switching gears to the new model first of all where did the whole like le chaton fat