Cohere is a Canadian AI company absorbing Germany's Aleph Alpha in a roughly $20 billion sovereign-AI deal announced April 2026, anchored by a $600 million commitment from retail group Schwarz. The pitch is that enterprise and public-sector data stays in European infrastructure, outside US cloud stacks, with Aleph Alpha's German public-administration and defence relationships providing the regulated-sector foothold. The two signed a definitive combination agreement on 16 September 2026, creating a company of more than a thousand people run from Berlin and Toronto under the Cohere name, with closing still subject to regulatory clearance expected before the end of the year.