Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Thursday that Canada is investing 1.6 billion Canadian dollars in domestic artificial intelligence company Cohere. Speaking in Montreal just ahead of the Canada-EU summit, Carney framed the funding as a crucial step for the country’s national security and long-term sovereignty.
Carney emphasized that national resilience increasingly relies on securing critical supply chains and high-tech infrastructure. “Sovereignty now requires secure access to semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technology, vaccines, space-based communications and artificial intelligence,” he said, adding: “Canada is taking a major step forward in artificial intelligence.” Carney stated: “We’re not waiting for the future of AI to be decided somewhere else by those we don’t know or […] don’t trust,”
Commercial Backing and Private Capital
Canada’s investment is commercial and made alongside private investors including Nvidia, Bell, and Germany’s Schwarz Group. Cohere co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez announced the initial close of a Series E funding round during the event at Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. The funding round targets up to seven billion Canadian dollars at a company valuation of 35.7 billion Canadian dollars.
Gomez underscored the strategic importance of domestic involvement in AI development. “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,” he said.
