Prime Highlights :
- Airbus signed a multi-year deal with Scaleway to host sensitive AI and industrial applications built with Mistral.
- Airbus will migrate 70 critical applications by 2028, potentially expanding to 900 over five to six years.
Key Facts :
- Airbus is a leading European aircraft manufacturer partnering with Mistral since May on aerospace AI tools.
- Scaleway was chosen after Airbus assessed over 150 technical and legal requirements, including digital sovereignty concerns.
Background :
Airbus has struck a multi-year deal with Iliad-owned Scaleway, bringing in cloud infrastructure built for sensitive industrial and defence work. The move backs Airbus’s rollout of AI tools built alongside French startup Mistral.
Under the arrangement, Scaleway will host key systems covering aircraft design, engineering, industrial output and corporate functions at the planemaker. This builds on a partnership Airbus struck with Mistral in May, aimed at jointly building tailored AI tools for aerospace and defence use.
Catherine Jestin, who serves as Airbus’s Chief Digital Officer, noted that having Mistral’s models already running on Scaleway’s systems gives the company a head start in rolling out its AI strategy faster.
The planemaker intends to apply Mistral’s technology to military projects and certified aviation systems, sectors where Airbus wants European firms handling intellectual property, R&D work, and sensitive information.
Jestin explained that Scaleway won the contract only after Airbus reviewed it against more than 150 separate technical and legal benchmarks. On the legal side, she pointed to safeguards against forced shutdown risks and against foreign laws reaching across borders into European operations as major factors.
Digital independence has become a growing priority for European governments and firms as artificial intelligence gets woven into defence systems, industrial operations, and critical infrastructure. Just last month, the European Commission put forward a Cloud and AI Development Act, designed to grow Europe’s own cloud and computing resources.
Airbus expects to shift roughly 70 essential applications onto Scaleway’s platform by 2028. Looking further out, the broader rollout could eventually stretch to as many as 900 applications over the coming five to six years. Financial terms of the deal were not released.