Cohere is set to take a federal equity stake of up to $1.6 billion after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the commercial investment today. The Toronto AI company builds systems for businesses and governments that want more control over where sensitive data is stored, how it is used and who can access it.
Ottawa says the money will be paid in stages, with regular reporting on jobs and Canadian spending, and that private investors in the same round include NVIDIA, Bell and Germany’s Schwarz Group. That follows earlier work with the firm, including a Bell partnership on a Canadian AI platform.
Under the terms Carney outlined, Cohere must create at least 1,000 new high-paying Canadian technical jobs by 2030 and commit at least $1.7 billion to additional computing infrastructure in Canada by the same year. The company also has to keep its Canadian incorporation and headquarters, invest in research partnerships at home and keep working with the Canadian AI Safety Institute.
Cohere closed the initial part of its Series E round, targeting $7 billion at a $35.7 billion valuation. This makes it the biggest private financing in Canadian startup history.
“Canada’s investment in Cohere is an investment in choice, in security, and in our ability to live our lives as we choose,” Carney said. “Today, true sovereignty depends on our ability to build, adopt, and govern AI on our own terms.” He added, “It is in all our interests for Cohere to succeed, and now all Canadians will have a share in that success.”
Speaking at the announcement, Carney tied the deal to who controls the technology. “We are not waiting for the future of AI to be decided somewhere else by those we don’t know, or by whom we don’t trust,” he said in remarks aired by CPAC. “We’re building it right here in the right way.” That message matches Cohere’s own focus on keeping sensitive government and business data under Canadian control.
Carney has dealt with Cohere before. In June 2025, co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez met Carney and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Ottawa when Canada signed an early public-service AI agreement with the company. The federal government had also already committed up to $240 million to Cohere under the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, a contribution finalized in March 2025 as part of Ottawa’s wider AI funding push.
“We founded Cohere in Canada with the belief that this country could build AI companies capable of competing at the highest level globally,” Gomez said. “This investment helps accelerate that vision by expanding our ability to attract world-class talent, build frontier AI systems, and develop secure, sovereign technology from Canada for customers around the world.”
Would you want Ottawa taking equity in more Canadian tech firms this way, or would you rather the government stick to grants and tax credits?
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