“Sovereignty now requires secure access to semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technology, vaccines, space-based communications and artificial intelligence,” Carney said. “Canada is taking a major step forward in artificial intelligence.”
In a pre-summit speech earlier Thursday in Montreal, von der Leyen cited April’s multi-billion dollar merger between Cohere and German counterpart Aleph Alpha as a key piece of the deepening Canada-EU cooperation that is set to unfold at Friday’s talks on AI.
“Both Canada and Europe believe this technology should serve people. So we will work together to tackle head-on the safety and security issues of runaway AI. We will develop together rules and standards and strong global governance,” she said.
Carney said Canada was making a commercial investment alongside private investors including Nvidia, Bell and Germany’s Schwarz Group.
Cohere co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez announced the initial close of its Series E funding round on Thursday, which is targeting up to C$7 billion at a C$35.7 billion valuation.
Gomez joined Carney at Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, for the Canadian portion of the funding announcement.