By Leo Marchandon <\/p>\n
Sept 16 (Reuters) – Canada’s Cohere and Germany’s Aleph Alpha signed a definitive merger agreement on Wednesday, the AI companies said. <\/p>\n
The combined business \u200cwill operate as Cohere, with dual headquarters in Toronto and Berlin, while \u200cAleph Alpha’s Heidelberg office will focus on research. Aleph Alpha co-chief Ilhan Scheer will become chief operating \u200bofficer of Cohere. <\/p>\n
The merger brings together a Canadian AI model developer and a German company that has increasingly focused on helping governments and businesses deploy artificial intelligence. The companies said demand was growing for AI systems that can operate within a customer’s own infrastructure and \u200ccomply with local regulatory requirements. <\/p>\n
Cohere \u2060CEO Aidan Gomez said the tie-up aimed to meet demand for AI “powerful enough to compete, but secure and governable enough to trust.” <\/p>\n
The \u2060plan was first disclosed in April, a combination valued at around $20 billion (\u20ac17.34 billion) at the time. Lidl-owner Schwarz Group is investing \u20ac500 million in the new entity. The companies did not \u200bdisclose updated \u200bfinancial terms and said the transaction remained \u200bsubject to regulatory approvals. <\/p>\n
The deal comes \u200cas European AI companies attract fresh investment. Mistral, Europe’s lead model maker, last week raised \u20ac3 billion at a valuation of more than \u20ac21 billion. <\/p>\n
Cohere develops Command, a family of open source AI models designed to run inside a customer’s own computing environment, positioning the company to serve businesses, governments and public administrations rather than consumers. <\/p>\n
Aleph Alpha, once touted \u200cas Germany’s AI champion, stepped back from developing \u200bfrontier AI models and refocused on AI integration software. \u200bCo-founder Jonas Andrulis left the \u200bcompany earlier this year after relinquishing the chief executive role in \u200c2025. <\/p>\n
Cohere reported $240 million in annual recurring revenue \u200bthis year, while Aleph \u200bAlpha reported revenue of less than 1 million euros in 2023, according to its latest public accounts. <\/p>\n
The companies said Schwarz Group would provide computing capacity \u200bthrough its cloud arm StackIT. \u200cThe retailer is investing between \u20ac11 billion and \u20ac13 billion in a German data-centre \u200bcampus expected to house up to 100,000 AI chips. <\/p>\n
(1 euro = $1.1535) <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Leo \u200bMarchandon in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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