# Levio and Cohere partner on sovereign AI for Canadian governments

> Quebec City–based Levio and Toronto-founded Cohere will help governments and regulated enterprises deploy AI in private cloud or on-prem under Buy Canadian, building on existing federal work.

- Desk: TIC Staff
- Published: 2026-09-15
- Section: Companies
- Canonical: https://trueinflation.ca/article/levio-cohere-sovereign-ai-partnership

QUEBEC CITY — Levio and Cohere announced a strategic partnership Tuesday to help Canadian governments and regulated enterprises move AI from pilots into production and scale, deploying models in private cloud or on-premises environments while keeping control of sensitive data.

The deal pairs Cohere’s enterprise AI models and agentic products with Levio’s integration, cybersecurity, AI and governance work. It builds on projects the two have already delivered for the Government of Canada and sits inside Ottawa’s Buy Canadian Policy, in force since December 2025, which prioritizes Canadian suppliers and content in strategic federal procurement. Cohere’s multilingual stack includes French-language capabilities aimed at Quebec and other bilingual institutions.

“What we are building with Cohere is sovereignty-in-a-box: serious enterprise AI, with the architecture, integration and governance expertise to put it to work without giving up control,” Levio CTO and Head of AI Marc-Antoine Pinard said. Cohere Chief AI Officer Joelle Pineau said organizations should not have to choose between advanced AI and control of data, infrastructure and operations. Levio, among Canada’s largest fully Canadian-owned system integrators with nearly 2,000 staff, and Toronto-founded Cohere frame the offer as a coast-to-coast sovereign path from model to deployment.

Sovereign AI that stays on Canadian iron is an inflation story about who captures productivity gains: if governments and banks can scale without shipping data abroad, more of the cost savings and capability stay inside the domestic cost structure.

Source: Levio / Cohere­