Canada and Europe: Building Sovereign AI Together
Canada was one of the strongest voices at this year’s Digital-Gipfel in Berlin, held on 2 and 3 November under the motto “Shaping AI”. Just days after the EU and Canada launched a new “alliance for the future” in Montreal, the summit showed how quickly the transatlantic partnership on AI is taking shape.
At the summit, Germany announced that it is joining an international AI alliance with France, Finland, Poland and Canada. Its aim is to shape the rules of AI around shared values and to reduce dependence on others. “We must avoid becoming completely dependent on third parties for this technology under any circumstances,” said Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Handelsblatt).
Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Evan Solomon, spoke at a session on “Tech Middle Powers Cooperation: Building a Sovereign Technology Alliance”. He also joined a ministerial discussion hosted by Chancellor Merz on “Shaping AI: From Sovereignty to Scale”. In a meeting with Germany’s Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger, the two discussed building on the Canada-Germany Sovereign Technology Alliance, launched in February 2026, which focuses on common AI models, shared digital infrastructure, access to capital and joint research. They also discussed supporting Cohere’s growth after its merger with Aleph Alpha, as well as AI safety and common standards. Wildberger summed up the approach as “sovereignty through partnership” (Government of Canada).
The Cohere and Aleph Alpha merger shows what this partnership looks like in practice. The combined company will operate as Cohere, with headquarters in both Berlin and Toronto and more than 1,000 employees across Europe and North America. It will also expand its work with Schwarz Digits to deliver sovereign AI on the STACKIT cloud (The Next Web). As Schwarz Digits CEO Christian Müller put it: “Digital sovereignty is not about going it alone, but about strategically joining forces.”
For Europe, the message from Berlin is clear: sovereignty doesn’t mean isolation. Working with like-minded partners like Canada is becoming a central part of Europe’s AI strategy.
