Struggling to find a foothold in the increasingly competitive market for artificial intelligence, two start-ups on Friday said they were merging in a trans-Atlantic alliance to better compete with American tech giants.<\/p>\n
Cohere, a Canadian company founded in 2019, is acquiring Aleph Alpha of Germany. The governments of both countries helped orchestrate the deal. The new company would aim to lure customers in business and government that are uncomfortable relying on American tech firms for artificial intelligence and other digital services.<\/p>\n
Cohere and other smaller A.I. firms have struggled to keep up with U.S. companies like Anthropic<\/a>, OpenAI and Google that have spent huge sums on talent, semiconductors and data centers. The American companies are building increasingly powerful systems and reach global customers. A.I. systems made by Chinese firms like DeepSeek<\/a> and Alibaba are also widely used globally.<\/p>\n The dominance of American and Chinese A.I. companies has set off alarm bells in capitals around the world. Governments are wary of becoming dependent on foreign firms for technology seen as critical for economic and national security.<\/p>\n Cohere and Aleph Alpha said in a statement that its deal would provide a \u201csovereign alternative in an era of growing A.I. concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make sure that the power does not rest in the hands of a few dominant players,\u201d Evan Solomon, Canada\u2019s minister for artificial intelligence and digital innovation, said at a news conference in Berlin, where he was joined by the chief executives of Cohere and Aleph Alpha, and Germany\u2019s digital minister Karsten Wildberger.<\/p>\n