Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on October 29, 2026 that the Government of Canada will take an equity investment of up to C$1.6 billion in Toronto AI company Cohere, made through the Canada Development Investment Corporation. The payments will be staged and tied to jobs and revenue targets.
The move came just ahead of the Canada-EU summit in Montreal. Cohere simultaneously announced the initial close of a Series E funding round targeting up to CAD $7 billion at a CAD $35.7 billion valuation — the largest private financing ever raised by a Canadian tech company. The round is led by Germany’s Schwarz Group, with NVIDIA, Bell Ventures and Bullhound Capital joining, and existing backers Inovia and Prosperity7 returning.
In return for the public money, Cohere must keep its headquarters and incorporation in Canada, invest about C$1.7 billion in Canadian computing infrastructure by 2030, and create at least 1,000 high-paying technical jobs by 2030, with staged reporting along the way.
Cohere, founded in Toronto in 2019 by CEO Aidan Gomez — a co-author of the foundational Transformer-era AI research — builds enterprise and government AI. Its annual recurring revenue grew 165% year-on-year to Q3 2026, and it acquired German AI firm Aleph Alpha earlier this year. Ottawa had already committed C$240 million to the company under its 2024 Sovereign AI Compute Strategy.
Carney framed the investment as a sovereignty play: “The most powerful AI systems are concentrated in a very small number of companies, in a very small number of countries” — a risk, he said, “to cost, to resilience and to sovereignty.” It is one of the largest government bets ever placed on homegrown artificial intelligence.
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Bhudev Bhagaliya is an experienced and senior journalist who has carved a distinct niche for himself in the world of Hindi journalism through his profound understanding and precise writing style. With over two decades of experience in the field of journalism, he has held key responsibilities at Dainik Hindustan for 12 years and at Amar Ujala for one year. Currently, he serves as the Content Editor for the Jagrook Youth News newspaper and portal, where he plays a crucial role in ensuring the quality and credibility of the news content. Bhudev Bhagaliya consistently writes about issues that help raise awareness within society and among the younger generation.