‘It fits our sovereignty’: Solomon praises Cohere merger with German startup

Canadian artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cohere Inc. received high praise from AI Minister Evan Solomon after it struck a merger deal with Germany’s Aleph Alpha GmbH. The companies officially announced the deal on April 24, saying it will help the startups better compete with American tech giants. Although the deal is pitched as a merger, the company will remain Canadian-headquartered, and will keep the name ‘Cohere’. As first reported by The Wire Report, Cohere executive Joëlle Pineau would not confirm whether the company would remain Canadian-owned or -headquartered during an appearance before the House industry and technology committee earlier this month. While speaking to reporters on April 30, Solomon (Toronto Centre, Ont.) told The Wire Report the foreign merger involving Canada’s only functioning large language model “is absolutely not a concern." "This is a great partnership,” Solomon said. “Cohere is a significantly larger company. The headquarters are maintained in Canada the is Canadian." In February, Canada and Germany launched the ‘sovereign technology alliance,’ which will “deepen coordination with trusted partners to strengthen sovereign AI capacity and reduce strategic technology dependencies,” according to a press release. Solomon said he was envisioning partnerships like the Cohere merger when he signed the agreement with Kersten Wildberger, Germany’s minister for digital transformation and government modernization. Solomon was also in Berlin for the merger announcement. "This is exactly what the is about,” he said on Thursday. "We are absolutely supportive of this deal. It fits our sovereignty, and you're going to see more.” Solomon did not elaborate on what those future deals may be, but earlier this month, he met with Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs, Sakari Puisto, to explore Finland joining the Canada-Germany agreement. Solomon said he wants companies on home soil to grow so Canadians do not have to “choose between the hegemon and the hyperscaler." "We want Canadian companies that are partnering with like-minded companies to scale, get access to the European market and give a real option so they can scale,” he told The Wire Report. During an appearance before the industry and technology committee on April 30, Jim Balsillie, founder and chair of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, told MPs that Canada’s thinking around its AI strategy is stuck in the 1970s. The intangible economy is not one of cooperative trade, Balsillie said, it is a rentier economy where one country is the landlord and another is the tenant. “Nobody’s going to look after Canada. Nobody’s going to be our economic partner, because nobody is anybody’s economic partner in this system. It has to be us that looks after ourselves,” said Balsillie, who was also the former co-CEO of Research In Motion (Blackberry). “I’ve not seen a country with more potential less attention to this than Canada.” With files from Davis Legree mcollins@thewirereport.ca

‘It fits our sovereignty’: Solomon praises Cohere merger with German startup

Regulatory |
By Maria Collins
|April 30, 2026

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‘It fits our sovereignty’: Solomon praises Cohere merger with German startup

Regulatory | By Maria Collins |April 30, 2026

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