Dutch chip tool-maker ASML has announced it will invest €1.3 billion in French artificial intelligence company Mistral in a major boost for Europe’s bid to be more technologically sovereign.

The team-up — which goes a long way toward keeping Europe’s most promising artificial intelligence company European — will be welcomed by those calling for the continent to be more technologically sovereign, especially in the field of cloud services and AI.

U.S.-based tech companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, along with legacy players like Google and Microsoft, have been forging ahead in the race to put AI-powered products into consumers’ hands — leaving Europe in the dust.

ASML, one of Europe’s largest tech companies by market value, takes an 11 percent stake in Mistral, which is one of the few European companies to develop AI models and chatbots that rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, both companies announced Tuesday morning.

ASML’s investment is part of a larger funding round of €1.7 billion for Mistral. The French company is valued at €11.7 billion.

“This investment brings together two technology leaders operating in the same value chain,” Mistral’s CEO Arthur Mensch said.

Currently, U.S. cloud providers service two-thirds of the European market, and the EU represents only 7 percent of global AI investments.

Dutch European Parliament lawmaker Bart Groothuis called the investment — after Reuters reported Sunday about the upcoming deal — a “brilliant move.”

“It helps to build a European AI ecosystem,” he added.