Ecosia’s decision to drop French AI provider Mistral is not a move towards Chinese technology, but rather a shift towards more affordable, energy-efficient open AI models, founder and CEO Christian Kroll clarified in a conversation with EU-Startups.
“We’ll probably be using Melious.ai in future. Unlike Mistral, this is a European company that offers high-quality, affordable AI inference powered by green electricity,” shared Christian in an exclusive interview.
The Berlin-based search engine recently made headlines after POLITICO reported that it was replacing Mistral with open models, including Chinese offerings such as Alibaba’s Qwen, Z.ai’s GLM and Moonshot AI’s Kimi.
However, Christian stressed that the company’s focus is on open models rather than their country of origin. These offer lower costs, greater flexibility and reduced energy consumption, aligning with Ecosia’s environmental mission.
Addressing concerns about political censorship in Chinese AI models, Christian explained that Ecosia can switch to alternative models when dealing with sensitive subjects, such as questions about Taiwan. The company is also working to eliminate political biases from its AI-generated answers.
The models are accessed through German platform Melious, which operates on European infrastructure powered by low-carbon energy. This allows Ecosia to use internationally developed AI while keeping its infrastructure and data processing in Europe.
Christian also reiterated his concerns about Mistral’s European sovereignty, arguing that its reliance on foreign investors, particularly from the United States, undermines its independence.
This follows a period of significant expansion for Paris-based Mistral AI. In September 2026, the company secured €3 billion in Series D funding, led by Samsung Electronics, at a valuation exceeding €21 billion. The investment followed €722 million in debt financing announced in March to develop its first large-scale data centre near Paris, as well as a €1.7 billion Series C led by Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML in September 2025.
Its latest funding round included US investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures, alongside European backers including ASML and Bpifrance. Mistral also participated in a €2.9 million investment in Italian infrastructure startup Clastix.
These come amid wider investment in European AI infrastructure, with financing announcements covered by EU-Startups in 2026 totalling approximately €6.2 billion, including Mistral’s own funding.
Christian contrasted this with Ecosia’s own funding history. The company grew largely without external financing, receiving early backing from German entrepreneur Tim Schumacher. In 2018, Ecosia adopted a steward-ownership structure that prevents the company from being sold or distributing profits to shareholders.
For Ecosia, the switch reflects a broader vision for European technology: rather than depending on individual AI developers, European companies can build competitive, independent services using open models running on European infrastructure.
For Mistral, however, this development implies a loss of trust in what is considered one of Europe’s most promising AI companies.