The new AI data centre is expected to bolster Cohere’s capabilities in training its models. Credit: Nomad_Soul /Shutterstock.

Cohere, an AI startup backed by NVIDIA, will build an ‘multibillion-dollar’ AI data centre in Canada with financial support from the Canadian government.

The Canadian government has committed to invest up to C$240m ($169.45m) to fund the development of Cohere’s proposed ‘multibillion-dollar’ AI data centre.

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The funding forms part of the country’s broader C$2bn Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, which aims to enhance the country’s AI infrastructure.

With the funding, Cohere plans to secure private capital to support the construction of the AI data centre, which is planned to be commissioned in 2025.

Canada Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland said: “Today, we are ensuring Canadian AI innovators have the right incentives to scale-up here at home. Our $240 million investment in Cohere is crowding in a multibillion-dollar private investment to build compute capacity, which will create more good Canadian jobs paying higher wages.”

The facility is expected to provide necessary domestic compute capacity for Cohere and other Canadian AI enterprises to pioneer the next wave of AI technologies.

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Canada Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne said: “Canadian champions drawing in billions of dollars in investment to build infrastructure is a homerun when it comes to putting policy in action. Today’s announcement with Cohere shows that our AI Compute Strategy is already driving innovation and mobilising the private sector.”

Cohere is set to partner with AI cloud platform CoreWeave for the development of the data centre, reported Bloomberg.

To date, Cohere has secured $970m in funding from a diverse group of investors, including NVIDIA, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and Inovia Capital based in Montreal.

Cohere founder Aidan Gomez was cited by the news agency as saying in a letter to employees and investors that the company intends to develop more customised and secure AI models.

Gomez said: “Cohere will use this support to continue building cutting-edge AI solutions that deliver significant efficiency gains for customers.”