The Toronto-headquartered AI startup currently has seven employees in the city, and plans to increase that number to as many as 21 over the next year. Cohere currently has over 400 staff in total, and offices in San Francisco, New York and London. (The Logic)

Talking point: The new Montreal site puts the firm in close proximity to the corporate headquarters of many large Canadian businesses, and gives it a presence in a second major Canadian hub of AI development. Cohere hopes to hire and work with the researchers and technical talent turned out by Mila, a major AI institute in the city. Montreal already hosts AI labs for major tech companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft and ServiceNow. Cohere is also touting the French capabilities of its AI models and tools for government departments and businesses, which are subject to the province’s strict language laws. The startup’s last two announced funding rounds have been led by backers headquartered in Montreal, in PSP Investments and Inovia Capital, respectively. Meanwhile, the CoreWeave data centre that Cohere will use to train new models will be based in Cambridge, Ont., and will come online next month.