Canada's Cohere taps Seoul to lead AI growth in Asia-Pacific

(Cohere)

Cohere, a Toronto-based security-first artificial intelligence company, announced Tuesday its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region, unveiling plans to establish a new office in Seoul.

This move underscores Cohere’s commitment to delivering secure, cutting-edge AI solutions to enterprises and governments across diverse languages and markets.

The Seoul office will serve as a strategic hub for business growth and innovation throughout the region, reinforcing Korea’s rising importance in the global AI landscape.

“We are excited to build a strong local team, support forward-looking clients and collaborate with government bodies to deliver meaningful and safe AI solutions that drive economic productivity,” said Cohere CEO and co-founder Aidan Gomez.

To lead this initiative, the company has appointed Andrew Chang as the new president of Cohere APAC, who previously held executive roles at leading global tech companies such as Google Cloud, Microsoft, IBM and Samsung SDS.

Cohere has already begun hiring top talent in Korea to accelerate the adoption of secure, multilingual AI solutions across regulated sectors that handle sensitive data, such as finance, health care and manufacturing.

The company will also launch a research grants program, Cohere Labs, and strengthen partnerships with leaders like LG CNS, a Korean information technology solutions provider under LG Group, with whom it recently secured a major public sector AI project with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Cohere, founded in 2019 by three former Google Brain researchers, has raised a total of $970 million from major investors, including Nvidia and AMD. Its current valuation is estimated at around $5.5 billion.