Unveiling Ecosia’s Shift: Embracing Open Models over China’s Influence

Ecosia’s Shift Towards Affordable and Energy-Efficient AI Models

Founder and CEO Christian Kroll of Ecosia clarified that the decision to drop French AI provider Mistral is not a move towards Chinese technology. Instead, it is a shift towards more affordable and energy-efficient open AI models. In a conversation with EU-Startups, Christian highlighted that Ecosia will likely be using Melious.ai in the future, a European company offering high-quality, affordable AI inference powered by green electricity.

In a recent exclusive interview, Christian shared, “We’ll probably be using Melious.ai in future. Unlike Mistral, this is a European company that offers high-quality, affordable AI inference powered by green electricity.”

Ecosia, the Berlin-based search engine, made headlines after reports that it was replacing Mistral with open models, including Chinese offerings such as Alibaba’s Qwen, Z.ai’s GLM, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi. However, Christian emphasized that the company’s focus is on open models rather than their country of origin. These models offer lower costs, greater flexibility, and reduced energy consumption, aligning with Ecosia’s environmental mission.

Addressing concerns about political censorship in Chinese AI models, Christian explained that Ecosia can switch to alternative models when dealing with sensitive subjects, such as questions about Taiwan. The company is also working to eliminate political biases from its AI-generated answers.

The models are accessed through German platform Melious, which operates on European infrastructure powered by low-carbon energy. This setup allows Ecosia to utilize internationally developed AI while keeping its infrastructure and data processing in Europe.

“Europe needs its own AI capabilities. At Melious, we run open-weight models on European infrastructure powered by clean energy, outside the reach of the US CLOUD Act. Whether a model was built in Europe, the US, or China, it’s simply a set of weights on our servers. It can’t send data back to its makers, and customer data is never retained or used for training. We’re proud to work with Ecosia to show that sovereign AI can deliver strong performance at a fair price,” CEO and co-founder Simon Jakobs told EU-Startups.

Christian also expressed concerns about Mistral’s European sovereignty, noting that its reliance on foreign investors, particularly from the United States, undermines its independence.

This decision follows a period of significant expansion for Paris-based Mistral AI. In September 2026, the company secured €3 billion in Series D funding, led by Samsung Electronics, at a valuation exceeding €21 billion. The investment followed €722 million in debt financing announced in March to develop its first large-scale data center near Paris, as well as a €1.7 billion Series C led by Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML in September 2025.

Its latest funding round included US investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and Salesforce Ventures, alongside European backers including ASML and Bpifrance. Mistral also participated in a €2.9 million investment in Italian infrastructure startup Clastix.

These investments come amid wider investment in European AI infrastructure, with financing announcements totaling approximately €6.2 billion in 2026, including Mistral’s own funding.

Christian contrasted this with Ecosia’s funding history, highlighting that the company grew largely without external financing, receiving early backing from German entrepreneur Tim Schumacher. In 2018, Ecosia adopted a steward-ownership structure that prevents the company from being sold or distributing profits to shareholders.

The switch for Ecosia reflects a broader vision for European technology, emphasizing that European companies can build competitive, independent services using open models running on European infrastructure rather than depending on individual AI developers.

However, for Mistral, this development implies a loss of trust in what is considered one of Europe’s most promising AI companies.