The Chief Executive Officer of a leading French artificial intelligence (AI) company has cautioned that the world faces a risk of the AI sector being dominated by a handful of firms, with such a high level of concentration potentially increasing the danger of market abuse by the leading players.

"We are confronting a problem of excessive concentration of power in AI," stated Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch on Thursday at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. "We do not want to live in a world where the deployment and development of AI are effectively controlled by three or four giant corporations."

"In the coming years, AI will profoundly transform how the economy functions," he added. "We need to prohibit excessive leverage."

Attendees at the summit included Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Leaders from some of the world's most well-funded and influential AI companies were also present, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic PBC CEO Dario Amodei, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.

These three companies are either heavily backed by U.S. tech giants or are wholly owned by one. Mensch's comments reflect growing concerns that the immense potential value of AI is being captured by a small group of already powerful entities. Headquartered in Paris, Mistral is seen as Europe's primary contender to challenge these companies in the field, despite having significantly less capital at its disposal than its American rivals. Mensch has consistently emphasized his company's more open and collaborative approach.

The flagship models from OpenAI, Alphabet, and Anthropic are closed models, meaning their code and underlying parameters are not publicly available and cannot be modified. In contrast, Mistral offers "open-weight" models, which it states are more adaptable and controllable for governments and businesses.

Following a €1.3 billion investment round led by Dutch chip equipment manufacturer ASML Holding, Mistral was valued at nearly €12 billion (approximately $14.2 billion) in September. Previous reports indicated that OpenAI is conducting a new funding round that could exceed $100 billion, valuing the company at over $850 billion. Anthropic recently completed a funding round at a $38 billion valuation.