AI News Roundup: Canada Bets C$1.6B on Cohere as Apple Brings Qwen to China

Canada made the biggest AI move of the past two days. Ottawa agreed on Oct. 29 to invest up to C$1.6 billion for an equity stake in Toronto-based Cohere. The money is part of a Series E round targeting up to C$7 billion at a C$35.7 billion valuation. That leads this AI news roundup for Nov. 1, 2026, which also covers Apple’s plan to bring Alibaba’s Qwen into Apple Intelligence in China, OpenAI’s new restricted biology model and a court loss for xAI over the gas turbines powering its Colossus data centers.

Canada buys into Cohere in its biggest-ever tech round

Cohere announced the initial close of the round on Oct. 29 and called it the largest private financing ever undertaken by a Canadian technology company. The companies of Germany’s Schwarz Group, the retail group behind Lidl and Kaufland, are leading. Bell Ventures, Bullhound Capital and the Government of Canada are new investors, and Nvidia, Inovia Capital and Prosperity7 Ventures are returning.

The round is not finished. The Logic reported that Cohere has not said how much of the C$7 billion investors have committed so far. Ottawa’s money comes with conditions. According to The Globe and Mail, Cohere agreed to keep its headquarters in Canada and to spend C$1.7 billion building compute infrastructure in the country by 2030. “Under this agreement, Cohere will stay Canadian,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said at the announcement. AI Minister Evan Solomon told the paper the payments depend on Cohere meeting its hiring and infrastructure commitments.

Cohere sells models and software to governments and to regulated businesses such as banks. Those customers can run its systems on their own servers or in private clouds. Chief financial officer Francois Chadwick said the money will pay for model and product development, compute for training enterprise models, and expansion across North America, Europe and Asia.

By the numbers: Cohere’s valuation more than triples

Cohere was valued at about US$7 billion in its 2025 round, which raised US$600 million across two closings, The Logic and The Globe reported. Sovereign Magazine converted the new C$35.7 billion figure at the Bank of Canada’s Oct. 28 rate and got about US$25.4 billion. On that basis, by TBR calculations, the valuation rose by roughly US$18.4 billion, or about 263%, in just over a year. That’s about 3.6 times the 2025 level.

Ottawa’s maximum stake of C$1.6 billion equals about 22.9% of the C$7 billion target, by TBR calculations. At the C$35.7 billion valuation it would buy roughly 4.5% of the company. Neither side has disclosed the actual percentage. Cohere’s C$1.7 billion compute pledge is slightly larger than the government’s cheque, and by 2030 it would be about seven times the C$240 million federal compute grant Cohere received in 2024, which The Globe also reported.

This is a different deal from the shrinking raise at OpenAI that we covered Friday: OpenAI cut its round target to $20 billion, from $30 billion. Investors are also questioning AI spending at the biggest platforms, as shown by S&P’s negative outlook on Meta.

Apple Intelligence heads to China with Alibaba’s Qwen

Apple confirmed on its Chinese newsroom that testing of Apple Intelligence in China will start Nov. 4 in its next iOS developer beta, 9to5Mac reported. A public release will follow in December with iOS 27.3. Alibaba’s Qwen will handle some requests in Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, including questions about photos and documents. Users can sign in with a Qwen account or with Sign in with Apple.

The launch leaves out Apple’s newer Siri AI. It covers earlier features such as Live Translation, Genmoji, Clean Up in Photos and notification summaries. It is limited to the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo. Apple said other devices will follow once regulators approve. Alibaba said it will not use user requests or responses to train its models, according to a report from Xinhua !Unverified claim, Xinhua (Chinese state media). The Qwen partnership itself is also confirmed by Apple’s own announcement, as reported by The Verge. Chinese AI labs are moving fast on other fronts too, as our report on DeepSeek’s open-source Super-Agent shows.

OpenAI’s GPT-Rosalind-6 and xAI’s turbine ruling

On Oct. 30, OpenAI released GPT-Rosalind-6, a reasoning model for biology, drug discovery and translational medicine. According to its system card addendum, it uses the same weights as the company’s flagship GPT-6 Astra and refuses fewer dual-use biology questions. Because of that, it is offered only through a trusted-access program that vets each applicant. Under its Preparedness Framework, OpenAI rates the launch High in biological and chemical capability, below Critical, and treats it as Critical in cybersecurity. The help center says API access is limited to approved internal research tools, not customer-facing products.

In Mississippi, U.S. District Judge Debra M. Brown denied xAI’s motion to dismiss an NAACP Clean Air Act lawsuit over gas turbines powering its Colossus data center operations, TechCrunch reported Oct. 31. The judge ruled that the turbines are not exempt “mobile sources” and that the citizen-suit provision is constitutional. The ruling does not decide whether xAI broke the law. Earthjustice, which represents the NAACP along with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the court has not yet ruled on a preliminary injunction. Earlier in October, the same court denied a similar motion to dismiss from the Justice Department.

What to watch next

Next up: the final size of Cohere’s round and whether Ottawa discloses its percentage stake; Apple’s Nov. 4 China beta; and the injunction ruling in the xAI case. Each will show how governments, courts and the biggest platforms are shaping the AI buildout.

Sources

• Cohere: Series E fundraise targeting CAD $7 billion (PR Newswire)
• The Globe and Mail: Ottawa to invest up to $1.6 billion in Cohere
• The Logic: Ottawa will invest up to $1.6B in Cohere
• Sovereign Magazine: Canada will invest up to C$1.6 billion in Cohere
• 9to5Mac: Apple confirms Apple Intelligence in China
• The Verge: Apple Intelligence is coming to China with iOS 27.3
• Xinhua via China Economic Net (Chinese state media): Alibaba’s Qwen to integrate into Apple Intelligence
• OpenAI: GPT-Rosalind-6 System Card Addendum
• OpenAI Help Center: GPT-Rosalind for life sciences research
• TechCrunch: Judge allows NAACP lawsuit over xAI data center pollution to move forward
• Earthjustice: Court denies xAI’s motion to dismiss