Tom Dennis

AI is everywhere. It’s in homes, schools, businesses, public services, headlines, films and music. Research from McKinsey reveals that 79% of organisations worldwide were using generative AI as of November 2025, while Stanford University’s AI Index Report 2026 finds that AI adoption has outpaced uptake of the PC and the Internet, reaching 53% saturation globally within three years of ChatGPT’s general release.

The UK Government is to spend £520m on the purchase or development of advanced semiconductors as part of a £1.1bn AI Hardware Plan, which will also fund the expansion of the Scaling Inference Lab and help train the next generation of engineers, programmers and chip developers.

Mistral AI distributes its models through Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services while at the same time making the loudest public case for routing European AI workloads away from American infrastructure. That contradiction is not hypocrisy. It’s the operating reality of a company trying to bootstrap a sovereign AI business while depending on the incumbents it wants to displace.