Canada is investing CAN$1.6 billion ($1 billion) in the AI firm Cohere, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday, vowing Ottawa would not leave AI in the hands of those “we don’t trust.”
Cohere was co-founded in Toronto in 2019 and has tried to position itself as a sovereign alternative to American AI giants.
Announcing the investment ahead of a major Canada-EU summit in Montreal, Carney said “we are not waiting for the future of AI to be decided somewhere else by those we don’t know or by whom don’t trust.”
In May, Cohere announced a deal to acquire German AI firm Aleph Alpha, creating a combined entity with dual headquarters in Toronto and Berlin.
The deal, backed by both the Canadian and German governments, was seen as an initial step aimed at trimming US and Chinese dominance in AI.
Cohere’s CEO Aidan Gomez was at Carney’s announcement and said the federal funds were part of a funding round targeting CAN$7 billion, which would take the company to a CAN$35.7 billion valuation.
“We are now the largest AI company outside the United States and China,” Gomez said.
“Around the world, organizations are looking for technology that they can trust and control, and that reflects their values,” he added.
