Cohere has opened a new office in Montreal, marking what the artificial-intelligence company calls “an important milestone” in its national expansion.

“This represents an excellent opportunity for Cohere to grow our Canadian talent base and strengthen our relationships with the Montreal, Quebec, and Canadian governments, and businesses throughout the region,” said CEO and Co-founder Aidan Gomez.

The Montreal office will act as a central hub for the firm’s growing team of more than 400 global employees. Cohere said it expects to triple its current headcount of seven in the city over the next year.

The Toronto-based company also announced that it will build on its existing partnership with Mila, the Quebec AI Institute.

“Cohere is a leading Canadian company and a global force in AI,” said Mila President and CEO Valerie Pisano. “Its national expansion is great news for our ecosystem and sends a strong signal to companies at home and abroad that Canada is a prime destination for developing cutting-edge AI technologies. We are at a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI, and a strong partnership between Mila and Cohere has never been more significant.”

Montreal mayor Valérie Plante also welcomed the office opening.

“Montreal’s artificial-intelligence ecosystem welcomes a key global player,” she said. “When a company like Cohere chooses our city, it means that our local talent and expertise will play an important role when it comes to AIʼs next developments.”

The company’s expansion is supported by Quebec-based investors such as Inovia Capital, and Cohere says it remains committed to advancing secure and multilingual AI systems, including in French.

Cohere is investing in a mega data- centre development project in an identified Canadian location. The federal government will provide Cohere with $240 million for the previously announced project through the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute project.

Cohere is partnering on it with with CoreWeave and chip maker Nvidia.

Photo: Cohere