Naver Cloud said Wednesday that it signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with Mistral AI, France's leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, to jointly target the manufacturing AI market. The agreement was signed Tuesday at 1784, Naver's second headquarters building.
The two companies already share the same technology ecosystem as members of the "Nemotron Alliance," which Nvidia formed together with major global companies. Building on this, they plan to develop joint business centered on the manufacturing industry, where synergy is expected to be greatest.
In particular, they plan to target global manufacturers with sovereign AI solutions optimized for the data sovereignty and industry characteristics of European and Asian manufacturing sites, rather than U.S.-centric general-purpose AI.
Immediately after signing the agreement, the two companies held a joint workshop involving key technical staff and began establishing plans and an execution roadmap for launching commercialized services in the manufacturing sector. They plan to continue research and development (R&D) collaboration and technical exchange among their research teams, jointly identifying AI challenges at industrial sites and creating a virtuous cycle of verification and advancement in actual field settings.
Mistral AI is a company with manufacturing-specialized AI capabilities proven in the global market through collaboration with major European manufacturers such as Airbus, BMW, and ASML. The two companies plan to combine their respective strengths to jointly introduce sovereign AI solutions to the global market that can be immediately applied to actual manufacturing sites.
As part of this cooperation, the two companies will also begin domestic business together. Mistral AI's latest models, platforms, and other full-stack products will be supplied through the Naver Cloud platform, while Mistral AI's field-dedicated engineers (FDE) will be dispatched directly to domestic client sites to handle technical support and issue resolution.
Their first task will be to apply proven manufacturing AI use cases that Mistral AI has accumulated at European manufacturing sites—such as real-time quality anomaly detection and parts selection optimization—to the Korean manufacturing environment. Through this, they plan to help domestic manufacturers effectively use global-level manufacturing AI technology in a secure environment that does not expose data externally.
"This partnership is a practical business collaboration that combines Mistral AI's manufacturing-specialized technology, proven in the global market, with Naver Cloud's stable infrastructure," said Kim Yu-won, CEO of Naver Cloud. "We will build successful references domestically and, based on that, continuously identify joint business opportunities in the global sovereign AI market."
"Naver Cloud is the optimal partner to jointly realize the manufacturing AI business," said Jeff Soon, Mistral AI's Asia-Pacific (APAC) head. "By combining the know-how Mistral AI has built up at European manufacturing sites with Naver Cloud's solid infrastructure, we will provide practical support for the AI transformation of global manufacturers, including those in Korea."
