When Arthur Mensch, cofounder and CEO of Mistral, takes the stage at the AI Action Summit in New Delhi, he draws a small crowd. Most would rather hear OpenAI’s Sam Altman or Anthropic’s Dario Amodei on superintelligent AI.⁣ ⁣ But Mensch’s message is different: the world should control its own AI destiny—not Silicon Valley. “AI should be a tool for empowerment, not dominance,” he says.⁣ ⁣ His vision for Mistral comes down to one word: independence. Unlike black-box rivals, most of its models are “open weight,” letting customers customize the AI using their own data or download it for free to run offline (or from a laptop).⁣ ⁣ The pitch resonates. Executives wary of Silicon Valley and rising Chinese AI players are drawn to Mistral’s focus on control and sovereignty—with engineers who can set up systems and keep data on-site.⁣ ⁣ Tap the link in bio to learn how France’s Mistral built a $14 billion AI empire by not being American. #ForbesAI50⁣ ⁣ 📸: Levon Biss for Forbes