See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source
OTTAWA — Canada is buying a stake in the country’s largest homegrown AI lab.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the federal government would be joining a $7-billion funding round led by Germany-based retail giant Schwarz Group in support of Cohere, with Canada agreeing to shell out up to $1.6 billion for an equity stake.
The entire funding round is valued at $7 billion, increasing the company’s valuation to nearly $36 billion and making Toronto-based Cohere Canada’s most valuable privately held tech company.
“And now, Canada has a stake in it,” Carney said at the announcement, held on the opening day of the Canada-EU summit in Montreal.
Both Nvidia and Bell Canada have also committed money to this round of funding.
The Schwarz Group, a multinational conglomerate based in southwestern Germany, is Europe’s largest retailer by revenue.
It owns the Lidl and Kaufland retail chains, as well as businesses in high-tech, corporate administration and waste management.
Cohere must keep HQ, jobs in Canada
In return for the investment, Cohere must maintain its Canadian headquarters and incorporation status, create 1,000 new high-paying jobs, and spend at least $1.7 billion on Canadian computing infrastructure by 2030.
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez vowed the company would always be based in Canada.
The money will come from the Canada Development Investment Corporation — a Crown corporation tasked with managing government assets and providing financial advice to the government.
Cohere, which already supplies services to the federal government, must also provide Ottawa with progress reports on its commitments.
This isn’t the first time the federal government has cut a cheque for Cohere. Ottawa pledged up to $240 million in 2024 to support an AI data centre project.
In his speech on Thursday, Carney said the federal government won’t send Canadians’ data outside the country, and Cohere will maintain data locally and protect it as laid out in the law.
“When the AI that runs our economy and public services is built in Canada, Canadians decide how it works and who it answers to,” the PM said.
“Canadians will only use AI if they can trust it with their personal information — Cohere is built for exactly that.”
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume