Cohere CEO Warns Europe Could Become 'Technologically Irrelevant' Without Sovereign AI

Aidan Gomez, CEO of Canadian AI firm Cohere, warned at the Vivatech trade show in Paris that Europe risks becoming "entirely technologically irrelevant" if it fails to develop sovereign AI capabilities on home soil. Speaking to AFP a day after a G7 meeting in Evian, Gomez urged democratic nations to back national tech champions and cooperate to scale those firms, rather than rely on foreign platforms.

Why Sovereign Tech Matters

Gomez argued that without technology built and controlled locally, nations surrender control over their data, productivity and critical industries. He warned that, in that scenario, "your data, your productivity, your critical industries, your ability to defend yourself — it will be what others allow." The comments come amid growing concerns about European tech sovereignty after Anthropic restricted external access to its most powerful models, Mythos and Fable, following a White House directive.

Cohere's Approach

Founded in 2019, Cohere focuses on enterprise and government AI applications in health, finance, energy and national security rather than consumer-facing products. Gomez has positioned the company as a potential sovereign alternative for European and Asian customers, though Cohere does not operate its own data centres. Instead, it plans to deploy software on infrastructure run by local providers such as France's Mistral or Germany's Deutsche Telekom.

“Truly sovereign capability requires a set of technical guarantees — infrastructure that you control, that is run by a sovereign entity... a company and champion within your nation,” Gomez said.

Sovereignty Washing

Gomez cautioned against so-called "sovereignty washing," where vendors market solutions as sovereign without delivering real diversification or resilience. He said developing cutting-edge models demands enormous resources and that it is unrealistic for every country to build its own model independently. Instead, he called for multiple strong companies distributed across democracies and collaboration among governments to support them.

Deals, Growth and Ambitions

Last month Cohere announced a purchase of German startup Aleph Alpha with backing from both Canadian and European sources; the merged entity — with headquarters in Toronto and Berlin — is reported to be valued at about $20 billion. Cohere has also acquired Canadian-German biomedical startup Reliant AI and formed partnerships with Spanish firms Indra and Multiverse Computing. The company now employs roughly 700 people and is preparing a new fundraising round, with Europe its second-largest revenue region after North America.

Policy Stance

Gomez dismissed industry calls for a pause in AI development, calling such pauses unrealistic and urging Canada and Europe to move faster to build capacity. "If anything, Canada and Europe have to go much, much faster," he said.

As governments and private firms navigate geopolitical restrictions and supply-chain dependencies, Gomez's remarks underline the strategic tension between scaling advanced AI quickly and building resilient, locally governed technology stacks.