Airbus partners with Mistral AI to strengthen the use of artificial intelligence in sovereign aerospace applications

Paris, France, 28 May 2026 – Airbus has signed a partnership agreement with Mistral AI, a European leader in artificial intelligence (AI). This collaboration supports Airbus’s ambition to place cutting-edge, ethical and trustworthy AI at the core of Airbus operations and processes, from initial design to on-board capabilities.

This partnership will expand the use of artificial intelligence across Airbus’ commercial aircraft, helicopter, defence and space activities, while adhering to strict security and sovereignty requirements, including for critical, highly confidential and military aerospace applications.

“This partnership paves the way for the deployment of high-impact, high-value use cases of trusted and responsible AI in aerospace.” said Catherine Jestin, Executive Vice President Digital at Airbus. “Thanks to the high-performance models and made-to-measure support of Mistral AI experts, we are building the foundations necessary to power our current and future products and services, enabling us to serve our customers better.”

“We are proud to partner with Airbus and contribute to its critical industrial operations. Together, we will deploy Mistral’s fully integrated AI stack to accelerate innovation, contribute to improve flight safety, and deliver greater value for customers”, said Timothée Lacroix, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Mistral AI.

Under the agreement, Airbus will acquire licences for the full Mistral AI product suite, enabling the deployment of models on-premises, in trusted clouds or wherever it makes sense for Airbus and its customers. The partnership also guarantees Airbus access to Mistral AI’s leading researchers and influence over the AI product roadmap, enabling the development of bespoke solutions for complex aerospace challenges.

Airbus and Mistral AI have identified several potential areas for collaboration, some of which have already begun:

• Industrial operations: streamlining complex workflows, particularly in the automation of technical documents production for commercial aircraft and helicopters.
• Engineering and design: accelerating innovation and design cycles through AI-driven simulations, such as aircraft part optimisation, or providing ad-hoc support to engineers during development, test and certification phases.
• Next-generation products: exploring deployment of AI models on board spacecraft and aircraft (edge AI), for applications such as automatic object recognition, which could contribute to enhancing situational awareness and flight safety.
• Sovereign defence applications: supporting military-specific needs, including cyber investigation and coding assistant, through highly secure on-premise deployments.

Airbus SE

Click here to read the latest issue of ESD.