Prime Minister Mark Carney used a gathering of European Union leaders in Montreal on Thursday to cast Canada’s C$1.6 billion investment in Cohere as a strategic choice about who develops and controls artificial intelligence. Speaking at Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Carney said: “We're not waiting for the future of AI to be decided somewhere else by those we don't know or … don't trust. We're building it right here in the right way.”
Canada’s investment will be a commercial one alongside private investors including Nvidia, Bell and Germany’s Schwarz Group. Cohere’s co-founder and chief executive, Aidan Gomez, announced the initial close of the company’s Series E funding round on Thursday, which is targeting up to C$7 billion at a C$35.7 billion valuation.
The government said it would release its funding in stages and require regular reports on Cohere’s commitments. Those commitments include creating at least 1,000 “new high-paying Canadian technical jobs” and investing at least $1.7 billion in computing infrastructure by 2030. Cohere will retain its Canadian headquarters and incorporation.
Carney placed artificial intelligence among the systems he considers necessary for national autonomy. “Sovereignty now requires secure access to semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technology, vaccines, space-based communications and artificial intelligence,” he said.
For Cohere, the funding round follows a series of government and cross-border moves. Gomez said the company was founded seven years ago. In 2024, the government said it would provide up to $240 million to expand Cohere’s computing capacity.
In April, Cohere announced a merger with Germany’s Aleph Alpha, with the combined company anchored in Germany and Canada. Ottawa then signed an agreement with Cohere in 2025 to identify where AI could improve public service operations.
Gomez said Cohere was “one of the very few companies in the world building frontier AI technology at a global scale” and described it as the largest AI company outside the US and China. He said: “We believe that artificial intelligence would become one of the defining technologies of this century, and that Canadians should help build it, shape it and benefit from it.”
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said Canada was one of only a few countries with a large language model.
The announcement came as the Canada-EU summit took place amid economic threats by US President Donald Trump against both transatlantic partners. Carney was due to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa on Friday.
Von der Leyen pointed to Cohere’s merger with Aleph Alpha as she set out a shared approach with Canada. “Both Canada and Europe believe this technology should serve people. So we will work together to tackle head-on the safety and security issues of runaway AI,” she said.
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