Product Hunt Weekly Digest
March 3rd, 2024

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT
Microsoft is diversifying its AI portfolio with this latest investment

If you haven’t heard of Mistral, I wouldn’t blame you. AI startups are all the rage these days, and for good reason. It's the pinnacle of future tech right now, and who wouldn’t want to leave their mark? 

Mistral is a French AI company that launched in May last year. It quickly received unicorn status in December after securing $385 million in funding led by A16z. The company is co-founded by Google DeepMind and Meta alums and is being touted as a potential European rival to OpenAI. 

The team is hoping to make good on that claim by launching a new flagship Large Language Model (LLM) called Mistral Large that is designed to rival some of the top-tier models like GPT-4 and Claude. 

Mistral Large is marketed as a cheaper GPT-4 alternative. It’s open-source by design, supports 32k context windows, has native function calling capacities, and is even bilingual from the get-go. 

According to the announcement, Mistral Large achieves fairly strong results on some commonly used benchmarks, to the point that it takes second place ahead of Claude and just behind GPT-4 when you measure multitask language understanding. 

Why does it matter? Well, Microsoft seemingly doesn’t want to put all its eggs in one basket with OpenAI and has announced a multi-year deal with Mistral. The deal will include around $15 million in investment and a research and development program to build applications for governments across Europe on top of Azure. 

Alongside the LLM, Mistral also launched Le Chat, the company’s own version of ChatGPT, where you can test out Mistral Large alongside its other LLM offerings, like Mistral Small and Next. 

As the AI race heats up, it’s becoming less and less clear which companies will come out on top. Can Mistral cement itself as Europe’s alternative? Only time will tell. 

Check out Mistral Large
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AI builders: There's a new security standard in town and you'll need to find out what it is, if you need it, and how it works.

ISO 42001 was introduced by the International Standards Organization so that companies can demonstrate their security practices around AI in a verifiable way.

Join Vanta and A-LIGN in a live webinar to learn about...

  • The components of ISO 42001. Understand it and its relevance.
  • Whether you need it. Kearn who benefits from it and how ISO 42001 ensures operational excellence in AI.
  • Best practices and strategies for successfully integrating ISO 420001.
  • TALES FROM PLANET INTERNET

    🚀 Space drugs: Is a title I never thought I’d write in a professional capacity, but here we are. Apparently, startups using microgravity for manufacturing pharmaceuticals is a thing.

    The one at hand is called Varda, whose mission is to build the world’s first industrial space manufacturing platform and earth re-entry logistics. It had a win recently when the U.S. government approved Varda’s spaceship to land on U.S. soil — the first time the FAA has licensed a commercial company to do so 

    More recently, its capsule, which was full of drugs, successfully landed back on Earth. You can check out the video here.

    TOOLS TO START YOUR WEEK

    PRODUCTIVITY 

    • DOTHING is a to-do app designed specifically for the Nothing phone. 
    • Noor is a team collaboration app designed for uninterrupted deep-focus work.

    DEV TOOLS

    • Humaan provides AI models through an API so you can build apps faster.
    • Protected App by Logto lets you build authentication without writing code. 

    DESIGN TOOLS 

    • Layers is a community for designers to share work, connect with others, and get inspired.
    • AnimStats turns your metrics like upvotes and sales into shareable, animated GIFs 

    FUN 

    • Yolk is a new social app where you message with stickers instead of words.
    • brickd is a place for Lego enthusiasts (me) to share their creations.