Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere is collaborating with Saudi-backed start-up Humain, as Ottawa expands its investment ties with the Gulf and moves to diversify away from the US.
Under the deal, Humain will designate at least 50 megawatts of dedicated AI computing capacity to support Cohere's next-generation foundational models, the companies said in a joint statement.
The expansion is expected to be live by late 2027, with the ability to increase over the next five years.
Thursday's announcement was made during Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's visit to the kingdom. It was the former central bank governor's third trip to the Gulf as part of a broader effort to boost trade and investment ties with the region and other partners amid trade tensions with the US and threats from President Donald Trump.
These efforts include an investment of up to $50 billion from the UAE in sectors including energy, AI logistics and mining.
Canadian International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu told Reuters in January that Canada wants to attract investment in liquefied natural gas. He also told the outlet that XRG, Adnoc's international investment arm, is looking at Canadian natural gas projects.
Gulf countries have been investing heavily in AI to capitalise on the rising need for computing power. G42, the UAE's AI company, has been focused on delivering AI and cloud computing in sectors ranging from energy and finance to health.
Qatar also recently launched its own AI champion, Qai, through its sovereign wealth fund to invest in infrastructure. In January, Doha signed a strategic partnership with Canada to accelerate two-way investment across AI, quantum computing, defence and other sectors.
Humain, which is backed by Riyadh's sovereign Public Investment Fund, has secured several agreements with technology companies since its establishment last year.
The AI start-up is part of Saudi Arabia's ambitions to emerge as an AI centre under its Vision 2030 programme.
"The fact that Cohere has selected Humain for the first significant international AI compute deployment outside North America underscores the strength of the AI infrastructure we are building and our ability to support the next generation of model research and development," Humain chief executive Tariq Amin said in a statement.
Canada has been making its own push in the global AI buildout, including through a new national strategy to support AI literacy and build the foundations for a sovereign Canadian AI.
Meta announced on Wednesday that it is building its first data centre in Canada. The 1 gigawatt facility in Alberta will cost about $9 billion and take two to three years to build.
Once complete, it will be Meta's 33rd data centre overall. Meta plans to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion on AI infrastructure and related spending in its current fiscal quarter. Altogether, the four major US hyperscalers plan to spend $700 billion on AI this year.
