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French AI lab Mistral has closed a three billion euro Series D round, valuing the company at twenty-one billion euros. Samsung and PSG Equity led the raise, which signals that sovereign AI — the idea that nations need homegrown intelligence infrastructure — has moved from political talking point to genuine investment thesis.
That appetite for independence is showing up in government procurement too. Switzerland's federal administration is pulling Microsoft three sixty-five from roughly three thousand devices, replacing it with open source alternatives modeled on Germany's openDesk platform. The transition carries a price tag of eleven point one million dollars and a completion target of end of two thousand twenty-seven — a reminder that switching costs are real even when the software is free.
Meanwhile, chipmaker Intel is reportedly preparing a ten percent price increase on CPUs ahead of a major product launch in March two thousand twenty-seven, the third such hike in roughly eighteen months. AMD is said to be watching closely and may follow with its own increases between June and July of that year. For anyone building data centers or buying consumer hardware, the message is straightforward: the window for current pricing may be narrowing.
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