Mistral Large 3 Ships as 675B MoE — The Largest Open-Source Frontier Model

Mistral released the Mistral 3 family on December 2, 2025 — a staggering 10 models in a single drop. The headline: Mistral Large 3, a 675B total parameter MoE model (41B active) with 256K context, released under Apache 2.0. It's the largest open-source frontier model available, according to Mistral AI.

Mistral Large 3

At 675B total parameters with 41B active, Large 3 is significantly bigger than Llama 4 Maverick (400B total, 17B active) while maintaining open-source licensing. The 256K context window matches or exceeds most competitors.

Large 3 is multimodal and multilingual, handling text, images, and documents across dozens of languages. It's positioned as the open-source alternative to Claude, GPT-5, and Gemini — free to download, modify, and deploy without licensing restrictions.

The Ministral 3 Family

Nine Ministral 3 variants shipped alongside Large 3:

• 14B, 8B, and 3B parameter sizes
• Each in Base, Instruct, and Reasoning variants
• All under Apache 2.0

This gives developers an unprecedented range of open-source options: from 3B models running on phones to 675B models competing at the frontier. The Reasoning variants bring Magistral-style chain-of-thought to smaller models.

Platform and Distribution

Mistral 3 models are available on Mistral AI Studio, Amazon Bedrock, Azure Foundry, Hugging Face, and multiple other platforms. This broad distribution ensures developers can use Mistral models on their preferred cloud without vendor lock-in.

The Open-Source Frontier Race

The Mistral 3 release intensified the open-source AI competition:

• Mistral Large 3: 675B MoE, Apache 2.0
• Llama 4 Maverick: 400B MoE, open-source
• Gemma 4: 31B, Apache 2.0, agentic-focused

Three major tech companies now invest billions in building models they give away for free. The strategic logic: control the model layer to capture value elsewhere (Meta through apps, Google through cloud, Mistral through enterprise services).

Our Take

10 models in one release is a statement of ambition. Mistral Large 3 at 675B parameters under Apache 2.0 is genuinely generous — building a model this size costs hundreds of millions. The Ministral 3 lineup gives developers options at every scale point. For European enterprises, this is the strongest case yet for building on open-source AI from a European company. The question is whether Mistral can sustain this pace of development — 10 models isn't just a release, it's a commitment to maintaining and updating an entire model family.

FAQ

What is Mistral Large 3? Mistral Large 3 is a 675B total parameter MoE model with 41B active parameters and 256K context, released December 2, 2025 under Apache 2.0. It's the largest open-source frontier model available.

How many Mistral 3 models were released? Ten models total: Mistral Large 3 (675B) plus nine Ministral 3 variants in 14B, 8B, and 3B sizes, each with Base, Instruct, and Reasoning versions.

Is Mistral Large 3 free? Yes, Mistral Large 3 is released under Apache 2.0, allowing free commercial and non-commercial use, modification, and distribution.

How does Mistral Large 3 compare to Llama 4? Mistral Large 3 has more total parameters (675B vs 400B for Llama 4 Maverick) but both use MoE architecture. Llama 4 Maverick has more experts (128) while Large 3 has more active parameters (41B vs 17B).