Calian Group Ltd. (TSX: CGY) and Cohere, the world’s leading sovereign AI company, today announced a collaboration agreement to evaluate and integrate sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) in defence environments. The initiative will focus on applying secure, Canadian-developed enterprise AI to improve decision-making speed, enhance training outcomes and strengthen operational readiness for the Canadian military, allied forces and small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) through Calian VENTURES. The collaboration will apply Cohere‘s secure agentic AI platform, North, within controlled defence environments to explore how sovereign AI can support faster, higher quality operational and training insights. By combining Cohere’s enterprise-grade generative AI capabilities with Calian’s expertise in defence operational readiness and next-gen training, the organizations will collectively assess how AI enhances mission planning, decision support, training effectiveness and operational workflows.
“This collaboration reflects how trusted AI can be integrated into defence environments in a practical and scalable way,” said Chris Pogue, President, Defence and Space, Calian. “By combining Cohere’s best-in-class AI capabilities with Calian’s expertise in operational readiness training and mission support, we are helping organizations improve decision-making, accelerate learning and enhance preparedness for complex operational environments.”
“Defence and security teams need AI they can trust, especially in sovereign, mission-critical defence environments,” said Dave Ferris, Vice President, Global Public Sector, Cohere. “Together, we’re pairing our industry-leading AI platform and models with Calian’s deep defence expertise to move beyond evaluation into real-world use, working through data sensitivity, scalability and adoption to enable defence forces to operate with greater operational clarity, precision and tempo.”
The initiative will extend opportunities through Calian VENTURES, enabling Canadian SMEs and partners to access and evaluate AI capabilities—supporting innovation, accelerating adoption and strengthening Canada’s sovereign intellectual property and defence industrial base. As demand increases for secure, sovereign AI across defence and government, the collaboration positions Calian and Cohere to advance practical, interoperable solutions that support Canada’s defence capabilities, support allied readiness and reinforce sovereign-innovation.
Cohere, founded 2019, is a security-first enterprise AI leader building foundation models and end-to-end products to solve business problems. We partner with organizations to deliver seamless integration, customization and user-friendly solutions. Our all-in-one platform provides maximum security, privacy and deployment flexibility across clouds, private environments and on-premises. Headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere operates additional offices in London, New York, Montreal, Paris, and Seoul, serving customers worldwide. The company has raised ~$1.6BUSD from strategic tech investors (Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Oracle, Cisco), institutional investors (Radical Ventures, Inovia Capital, PSP Investments, HOOPP, BDC, Nexxus), and AI pioneers including Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Pieter Abbeel and Raquel Urtasun.
