At the end of last week, the Government of Canada announced a $1.6 billion investment in Toronto-based AI company Cohere. Following that announcement, Cohere has provided some updates on its larger plans for Canada.
Most notably, Cohere says it’s investing over $4 billion in R&D and AI infrastructure through 2031. The company says this will create over 1,500 jobs, 1,000 of which will focus on “AI research, engineering, product development and other advanced technical disciplines.”
The feds’ investment in Cohere comes as part of the company’s wider $7 billion fundraising round. Altogether, this will put Cohere’s valuation at about $36 billion, which the government says makes it the largest AI company outside of the U.S. and China. In a statement last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney said these Cohere investments will help produce “affordable, secure, sovereign AI, built in Canada for the benefit of Canadians.”
However, there’s naturally been a lot of scrutiny into all of this news. For one, the Cohere investment is believed to be the largest-ever federal equity investment in a single private tech company. And yet, there’s still many questions surrounding the terms of the deal, including what degree of control the feds have over Cohere.
And on a wider level, there’s a lot of apprehension regarding AI companies in general. Not only is there a huge lack of regulation across the board, including in Canada, but data centres also carry significant energy, water, and land costs.
Digital sovereignty is certainly important, especially as our once-close U.S. allies have betrayed us with a senseless trade war and threats to our sovereignty. Still, many questions must be answered about Cohere and Canada’s larger AI push.
Image credit: Cohere
Source: Cohere
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