At Mistral AI, our mission is to bring artificial intelligence in everyone’s hands. For this purpose, we have consistently advocated for openness in AI, with a unique focus on empowering organizations that want to own their AI future.
Today, as AI becomes increasingly integrated into every layer of our economy, it is crucial for developers, policymakers, enterprises, governments and citizens to better understand the environmental footprint of this transformative technology. At Mistral AI, we believe that we share a collective responsibility with each actor of the value chain to address and mitigate the environmental impacts of our innovations.
Even though some recent initiatives have been taken, such as the Coalition for Sustainable AI, launched during the Paris AI Action Summit in February 2025, the work to achieve here remains important. Without more transparency, it will be impossible for public institutions, enterprises and even users to compare models, take informed purchasing decisions, fill enterprises' extra-financial obligations or reduce the impacts associated with their use of AI.
In this context, we have conducted a first-of-its-kind comprehensive study to quantify the environmental impacts of our LLMs. This report aims to provide a clear analysis of the environmental footprint of AI, contributing to set a new standard for our industry.
The first comprehensive lifecycle analysis of an AI models
After less than 18 months of existence, we have initiated the first comprehensive lifecycle analysis (LCA) of an AI model, in collaboration with Carbone 4, a leading consultancy in CSR and sustainability, and the French ecological transition agency (ADEME). To ensure robustness, this study was also peer-reviewed by Resilio and Hubblo, two consultancies specializing in environmental audits in the digital industry.
In addition to complying with the most rigorous standards*, the aim of this analysis was to quantify the environmental impacts of developing and using LLMs across three impact categories: greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), water use, and resource depletion**. Today, we are disclosing two important metrics for our industry in the long term:
the environmental footprint of training Mistral Large 2: as of January 2025, and after 18 months of usage, Large 2 generated the following impacts:
20,4 ktCO₂e,
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