TORONTO — AI company Cohere will help build a multibillion-dollar data centre in Canada, with the government providing up to $240 million to support the project.

The money is the first slice from a $700-million fund Ottawa announced yesterday to finance the development of AI infrastructure in Canada, and part of Canada’s larger $2-billion Sovereign AI Compute Strategy. The new data centre will provide compute power for Toronto-based Cohere and other Canadian tech companies, the government said.

Further details, including the size and location of the data centre, have yet to be announced. It will come online in 2025, the government said.

The data centre will be powered by Nvidia’s latest GPUs, Cohere’s CEO Aidan Gomez said in a press conference in Toronto. 

“In the coming months, the cutting edge infrastructure will allow us to train our next models here in Canada. It’s crucial that we help Canada retain our world class talent and our intellectual property by creating an environment where AI companies not only grow but thrive,” Gomez said.

CoreWeave, a New Jersey-based cloud computing startup, will build the data centre.

CoreWeave is valued around US$11.5 billion and has raised US$9.74 billion to date. The software company is backed by Nvidia as well as the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, a Canadian pension fund.

Cohere, which is valued at over US$5.5 billion, is Canada’s most notable AI company. It’s raised around US$940 million to date, according to PitchBook data. Backers include PSP Investments, Inovia Capital, Nvidia and Oracle.