PARIS, May 28 : Mistral, widely seen as Europe's leading AI company and its best hope of challenging top U.S. peers, on Thursday defended military uses of the technology as it unveiled a new French data centre. Mistral CEO and co-founder Arthur Mensch told reporters that Europe needed its own AI tools because rivals and adversaries were already using them. His comments countered criticism from Pope Leo, who on Monday urged international regulation to curb the development of AI systems and