sovereign ai / callosum / uk supercomputers

Kai Nicol-Schwarz / CNBC : As part of the Cohere-Aleph Alpha deal, Aleph Alpha backer Schwarz Group plans to invest $600M in Cohere's Series E, which a source says is set to close in 2026 — Canadian AI lab Cohere announced on Friday that it planned to acquire German AI company Aleph Alpha, as it eyed major expansion in Europe.

Cohere, a Canadian generative AI startup, has acquired German rival Aleph Alpha as part of a push to expand its presence in Europe. The deal brings together two LLM-focused companies—Cohere, known for its language models and APIs, and Aleph Alpha, recognized for European-centered AI capabilities—to strengthen product offerings, data governance, and compliance with regional regulations. The acquisition matters because it accelerates Cohere’s access to European talent, customers, and regulatory know-how amid competition from OpenAI, Anthropic and major cloud providers. For European enterprises and governments concerned about data sovereignty and AI compliance, the combined firm could offer locally-aligned models and services while helping Cohere scale globally.

Financial Times : Canada's Cohere and Germany's Aleph Alpha agree to a merger deal valuing the combined group at ~$20B to work on sovereign AI; both governments support the deal — Canadian and German start-ups to focus on ‘sovereign’ AI systems independent of US and China — Canadian AI start-up Cohere …

Joel Khalili / Wired : The UK unveils Sovereign AI, a £500M fund to invest in domestic AI startups, starting with Callosum, which builds software to help different chips work together — In a bid to minimize dependence on technology from other countries, the UK government is plowing resources into homegrown AI startups.

The UK government has launched Sovereign AI, a $675 million venture fund to back domestic AI startups and reduce dependence on foreign technology. Led by James Wise (Balterdon Capital) and Joséphine Kant (ex-Dogwood Ventures/Y Combinator), the fund will invest across model development, agentic AI, drug discovery and related fields, and will provide portfolio companies access to UK supercomputers, free visas for hires, procurement pathways, and government expert advice. An initial investment went to Callosum, and six more startups received up to one million GPU hours each. The move aims to capture more of the global AI value chain while balancing economic growth and national security, though experts warn full self-sufficiency is unlikely and targeted niche plays are preferred.