The two firms plan to sell data storage and processing to governments and firms in regulated industries. SAP will also offer Cohere’s AI tools as part of its cloud service in Canada. (The Logic)

Talking point: The federal government is still defining what “sovereignty” means in terms of technology, and how that will play into its plans to expand Canada’s AI compute capacity. That hasn’t stopped both foreign and domestic companies from touting their AI tools, cloud services and infrastructure as the solution. SAP promised its new compute service will be run by local staff and keep data in Canada. The German tech giant already sells millions of dollars worth of software to the federal government each year, but Ottawa mostly buys its cloud capacity from Silicon Valley’s largest firms. Bell, meanwhile, got into the AI data centre business last year. Both Bell and SAP have existing deals with Cohere to help sell the Toronto AI startup’s tools, like its North agent builder to public and private sector clients.