Mistral AI surfs vibe coding tailwinds with new coding models

Mistral, the French AI startup, has unveiled Devstral 2, its latest AI model tailored for coding, as it aims to rival larger AI entities like Anthropic and other specialized coding-focused language models. This launch comes on the heels of the introduction of the Mistral 3 series of open-weight models, signaling Mistral's commitment to closing the gap with its more established and better-funded competitors. In an exciting move, Mistral is also entering the burgeoning ‘vibe-coding’ sector, which has propelled companies like Cursor and Supabase into the spotlight. Their new command-line interface, Mistral Vibe, is designed to enhance code automation through natural language. This innovative tool provides functionalities for file manipulation, code searching, version control, and executing commands. Mistral AI believes that context awareness adds significant value, particularly in business applications. Similar to its assistant, Le Chat, which recalls past interactions to improve responses, Vibe CLI boasts a persistent history feature. It can analyze file structures and Git statuses to create context, enhancing its operational accuracy. The robust requirements for Devstral 2 highlight its production-grade capabilities, necessitating a minimum of four H100 GPUs or an equivalent for deployment, with a staggering 123 billion parameters. For those seeking a more accessible option, Mistral offers Devstral Small, which packs 24 billion parameters—suitable for local deployment on consumer hardware. The two models vary not only in size but also in licensing; Devstral 2 is distributed under a modified MIT license, while Devstral Small adheres to the Apache 2.0 license. Pricing structures have also been established, with Devstral 2 available for free initially via the company’s API, transitioning to a cost of $0.40/$2.00 per million tokens (input/output) thereafter. In contrast, Devstral Small will be priced at $0.10/$0.30. To facilitate the release of Devstral 2, Mistral has collaborated with agent tools Kilo Code and Cline, while Mistral Vibe CLI is being offered as an extension within Zed IDE. Currently, Mistral stands as a leading AI lab in Europe, boasting a valuation of €11.7 billion (approximately $13.8 billion), following a successful Series C funding round led by Dutch semiconductor giant ASML, which invested €1.3 billion (around $1.5 billion) in September.