TotalEnergies Forges AI Partnership with French Startup Mistral to Accelerate Energy Transition and Boost Efficiency
Paris, France—June 12, 2025— Global multi-energy company TotalEnergies has announced a strategic partnership with French artificial intelligence (AI) startup Mistral AI. This collaboration aims to significantly enhance the application of AI across TotalEnergies’ operations, with a particular focus on improving performance, optimizing industrial assets, reducing CO2 emissions, and accelerating the company’s ambitious multi-energy strategy, especially in low-carbon energies.
The core of this partnership involves the establishment of a joint innovation lab, bringing together experts from both TotalEnergies and Mistral AI. Mistral AI, a leading European pioneer in generative AI specializing in open-weight large language models (LLMs), will contribute its advanced AI technologies, while TotalEnergies will provide its deep expertise in energy production, particularly in renewables and low-carbon solutions.
The initial use cases for this joint lab highlight the diverse applications of AI within the energy sector:
- AI Assistant for Researchers: Mistral AI will develop an AI-powered assistant for TotalEnergies’ approximately 1,000 researchers. This tool is designed to support them in their mission to develop new energies and reduce the company’s environmental footprint by streamlining data analysis, suggesting new research avenues, and potentially accelerating the design and testing of low-carbon solutions like advanced biofuels, hydrogen systems, and carbon capture technologies.
- Operational Efficiency and Emissions Reduction: The partnership will focus on developing decision-support solutions to enhance the performance of TotalEnergies’ industrial assets. This includes optimizing operations at refineries, offshore platforms, and renewable energy installations. AI algorithms could, for example, predict equipment failures in wind turbines or solar farms, enabling predictive maintenance that reduces downtime, optimizes energy output, and significantly lowers CO2 emissions. Initial estimates suggest such tools could reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 10% across TotalEnergies’ operations, a critical step towards its 2050 net-zero goals.
- Enhanced Customer Experience and Energy Savings: Support solutions will be implemented to improve the customer experience and help them save energy. This could involve AI-driven applications that provide real-time energy consumption analytics for households and businesses, offering personalized recommendations to lower costs and emissions.
The new lab will also explore additional digital solutions, particularly for renewable energy production, further embedding AI into the planning and operation of solar and wind farms.
Strategic Implications and Digital Sovereignty
This collaboration is highly strategic for both companies. For TotalEnergies, it signifies a major pillar of its technological ambition, leveraging digital technology and artificial intelligence to improve industrial performance and support its ongoing energy transition. The company has a history of utilizing AI in areas like earth science, predictive maintenance, and optimizing electricity trading, but this partnership marks a significant step forward in integrating generative AI.
For Mistral AI, this partnership illustrates the profound impact generative AI can have on a sector as strategic as energy. By dedicating its AI solutions and experts to TotalEnergies’ research and development, operational teams, and customer initiatives, Mistral AI is contributing directly to improved operations and the digital transformation of a global energy giant.
Furthermore, the partnership also addresses the crucial issue of digital sovereignty in Europe. By collaborating with Mistral AI, a prominent European AI firm, TotalEnergies aims to contribute to the emergence of a robust technological ecosystem within Europe, ensuring that critical AI infrastructure and data remain within the EU. This alignment could also potentially attract government funding for green projects and reduce regulatory risks related to data localization.
While no specific financial details or timeline for the innovation lab were disclosed in the announcement, the strategic alignment underscores a shared vision for a more efficient, sustainable, and technologically advanced energy future. This partnership positions TotalEnergies at the forefront of AI-driven energy innovation, accelerating its journey towards decarbonization and setting a precedent for the integration of advanced AI in the global energy landscape.
