Joëlle Pineau, chief AI officer at Canadian startup Cohere, told Sifted that AI developers outside the US and China need to consolidate. She argued that smaller players must join forces to create credible alternatives to the dominant AI model makers, and warned that regions without local capabilities will be left dependent on the US and China. "They will hold us by the throat," she said.
Pineau's comments came just over a week after Cohere signed an agreement to merge with German AI startup Aleph Alpha. The deal illustrates the cross-border consolidation she says is needed to build sovereign AI capacity outside the US and China.
The article is based on a single interview, so there are no conflicting accounts to compare. Pineau's remarks add to a broader European debate about reducing reliance on imported AI models, though the report does not include responses from US or Chinese companies.