Canadian enterprise AI company Cohere announced on April 24 that it is acquiring Germany's Aleph Alpha in a deal valuing the combined entity at roughly $20 billion. Schwarz Group — the German retail conglomerate that owns Lidl and Kaufland and is one of Aleph Alpha's largest existing customers — is leading Cohere's upcoming Series E with a $600M commitment. The deal has been endorsed by both the German and Canadian governments and is framed around "sovereign AI": private, auditable LLM deployments for enterprises and public-sector clients unwilling to route sensitive data through US hyperscalers. Cohere will retain its name and operate dual headquarters in Toronto and Heidelberg; the Business Wire press release describes it as "a direct challenge to OpenAI and Google in regulated industries."