Generative AI startup Cohere plans to deploy a multibillion-dollar data center in Canada, built and operated by CoreWeave.
Cohere will be the anchor tenant of the project, with capacity expected to be available for other companies.
As yet, the exact location has yet to be determined. CoreWeave also uses wholesale data center space from other providers, and it is not clear if it will use a partner for this project.
The Canadian government will support Cohere with up to C$240 million ($170m) in funding as part of its C$2 billion Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy.
“Canadian champions drawing in billions of dollars in investment to build infrastructure is a home run when it comes to putting policy in action,” Francois-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s innovation minister, told Bloomberg.
Canadian AI startup Cohere was last valued at US$5.5 billion, and develops custom-built AI solutions for enterprises - focusing on foundation models for customers, rather than the bigger projects from OpenAI and Anthropic.
It counts Nvidia and Cisco as investors, and in March announced it would use Oracle Cloud for some of its training and deployments but would remain broadly cloud agnostic.
CoreWeave, meanwhile, has quickly grown to become the largest cloud newcomer, rivaling hyperscalers for AI hosting deals - and helping host Microsoft in a deal worth $10 billion over the next six years.
The company has raised billions of dollars in equity funding and billions more in debt financing in the last two years to fund its expansion plans. This November, it raised another $650 million.
CoreWeave is reportedly planning to go public in 2025; it is estimated the company is currently valued at around $23 billion.
