Canada and Europe have announced a new alliance of like-minded nations to serve as both a “protective canopy under which our citizens can thrive” and a powerful hedge against the unpredictable nature of geopolitics, while welcoming other countries to join.

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Carney pointed to a planned merger between the Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere Inc and Germany’s Aleph Alpha GmbH as a step to lessening reliance on American AI giants. The tie-up will see the newly formed company have dual headquarters in Berlin and Toronto, and Canada’s federal government has announced a stake in Cohere worth up to C$1.6bn.

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Brussels and Ottawa also announced an agreement on Friday that would bringing Canada into Europe’s supercomputing network, giving Canadian access to European machines to train AI models.

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In addition to lofty promises of helping to reshape the global order, or giving safe harbour to like-minded nations looking to weather uncertainty, Canadian and EU leaders also pitched their new, deeper relationship as one that addressed key sources of anxiety for residents, including the cost of living.

“When trade becomes a tool of economic pressure, it’s the families that pay the price, from the supermarket shelf to the cost of a new car,” Von der Leyen said, noting that previously trusted trusted suppliers of energy, critical minerals or semiconductors “are increasingly turned into instruments of pressure”.

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Edit:

Canada and the EU announced more than twenty new measures that will create greater affordability, opportunity, and sovereignty on both sides of the Atlantic and launched negotiations to deliver multiple others.

• Keep prices fair when Canadians shop. Canada and the EU concluded negotiations toward a new Canada-EU Competition Agreement to enable Canadian and European authorities to crack down on anti-competitive practices by companies operating on both sides of the Atlantic.

Over the coming months, Canada and the EU will negotiate:

• Faster payment systems. We will support connecting Canada and the EU's instant payment systems to enable Canadians to send money to people and businesses in the EU seamlessly.
• More choice in banking and insurance. Canada and the EU will launch a Joint Working Group to explore opening their markets further to each other's banks, insurers and fintech companies.

To create more opportunities for Canadian students, researchers, and entrepreneurs, today Canada and the EU announced that we will:

• Give Canadian scientists access to some of the world's most powerful supercomputers. Canada has joined the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking. This initiative will give Canadian researchers, innovators and businesses access to JUPITER, one of the world's most powerful supercomputers. It will also accelerate collaboration on AI and research – speeding up discovery.
• Make it simpler for Canadian businesses to sell online across Europe. We concluded a new Canada-EU Digital Trade Agreement that will make it easier for Canadian businesses to sell goods and services online across Europe by updating digital trade rules and making cross-border transactions simpler.

[You'll find much more at Newswire.ca.]

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