“We’re announcing in a couple of hours our new reasoning model, which is very much competitive with all the others and has the specificity of being able to reason in multiple languages,” Mensch told CNBC during a fireside chat at the event.
Dubbed Magistral, the model is designed to handle complex tasks using a step-by-step logical process, excelling in areas like mathematics and computer coding, according to Mensch. Its multilingual capability — with a focus on European languages — sets it apart from other models on the market, which typically specialise in either English or Chinese.
“Historically, we’ve seen US models reason in English and Chinese models reason in Chinese,” CNBC quoted Mensch as saying. “We’re trying to push reasoning capabilities in European languages.”
Mistral, which is backed by Microsoft, develops open-weight large language models — systems whose internal parameters are publicly available, allowing developers to adapt the models without the need for costly retraining.
The announcement positions Magistral as a direct competitor to OpenAI’s o1 model, released late last year, and DeepSeek’s R1 model, which debuted in early 2025 and drew attention for its strong performance at a lower cost.
While Mistral’s initial focus is on European language reasoning, Mensch confirmed the company plans to expand to additional languages in the future.