Cohere Deepens Commitment to Japan with Sovereign AI Investments and Growing Enterprise Adoption

Establishment of a new Japanese legal entity, expanded sovereign AI initiatives, and local enterprise partnerships accelerate Cohere's growth in Japan

TOKYO, Nov. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cohere, a leading provider of sovereign AI for enterprises and governments, today announced significant momentum in Japan, including plans to establish a Japanese legal entity and expand investments in sovereign AI initiatives tailored to the country's regulatory, linguistic, and industrial requirements.

The announcement comes as Japanese organizations increasingly seek secure AI solutions that give them greater control over sensitive data and intellectual property. Cohere's enterprise-grade models and North platform enable advanced AI deployments in private, highly secure environments, helping meet stringent security, data residency, and compliance requirements as regulatory and cybersecurity demands grow.

"Japan is emerging as one of the world's leading markets for secure, sovereign AI," said Andrew Chang, Vice President of APAC, Cohere. "Organizations across both the public and private sectors are moving beyond experimentation and deploying AI in mission-critical environments. We're proud to deepen our local presence in Japan and work alongside some of the country's most important institutions and enterprises as they build AI capabilities that reflect their own requirements, values, and strategic priorities."

Building AI for Japan
The company has been building its local team under the leadership of Hyonju Cho, Cohere Japan Country Manager, while partnering with Japanese organizations to advance domestic AI capabilities. The company has partnered with Fujitsu to support the development and deployment of sovereign AI technologies, including Takane, a large language model (LLM) optimized for the Japanese market.  As announced  by Japan's Digital Agency, Takane is among the domestic LLMs selected for evaluation in GENAI, the generative AI environment developed as part of the Agency's Government AI efforts.

Today, Cohere's products are deployed by organizations operating in the public sector and advanced manufacturing, reflecting growing demand for secure AI systems that enable organizations to retain control over their data and operations.

To support this growth, Cohere plans to establish a legal entity in Japan, strengthening its ability to serve customers locally and invest further in the country's rapidly expanding AI ecosystem. As part of this commitment, Cohere is investing in its growing partner ecosystem in Japan, including a training and certification program designed to help local Japanese partners build expertise deploying secure, enterprise-grade AI solutions.

Japan has become one of Cohere's fastest-growing markets globally, driven by strong demand from organizations seeking enterprise AI that can be deployed securely and adapted to local requirements. The establishment of a legal entity in Japan reflects Cohere's long-term commitment to building a global ecosystem of frontier AI model builders that can retain choice, security, and control as they build the critical infrastructure of the future.

Cohere is also continuing its initiative to expand its Model Vault offering in Japan, a proprietary AI inference infrastructure that enables secure, region-localized deployment of AI models. Backed by local compute clusters, this initiative allows customers to run fully in-region inferencing for their AI workloads, ensuring customer prompts and model responses remain within Japan while supporting sovereign inferencing and maintaining strong privacy and security protections.

Enabling AI Adoption in Highly Regulated Industries
Cohere's platform is designed to address complex requirements around security, privacy, compliance, and data residency, with deployment flexibility across public cloud, private cloud, on-premises, and fully air-gapped environments, making Cohere a trusted partner for governments and enterprises operating regulated industries.

Cohere's record-setting Series E funding, targeting up to CAD $7 billion and representing a CAD $35.7 billion valuation, will accelerate frontier model development, expand enterprise-scale compute infrastructure, and strengthen its full-stack AI platform with purpose-built solutions tailored to regulated industries. The acquisition of AISLE establishes Cohere Cyber, enhancing security and threat detection capabilities for organizations operating in highly sensitive environments. Together, these investments signal Cohere's ability to support Japanese organizations with secure AI deployments at scale.

Cohere's continued investments in Japan reflect its belief that organizations increasingly want AI they can deploy on their own terms, with greater control over how it is developed, deployed, and governed.

About Cohere
Cohere, founded in 2019, is a leading provider of sovereign AI for regulated industries and governments that enables organizations to own, operate and govern their AI systems with greater control over their data, infrastructure, and deployment. Our all-in-one platform provides maximum security, privacy, and deployment flexibility across public and private clouds, on-premises environments, and fully air-gapped settings. Headquartered in Toronto, Cohere operates in San Francisco, London, New York, Berlin, Montreal, Ottawa, Singapore, Paris, Tokyo, United Arab Emirates, and Seoul, serving customers worldwide. For more information, visit cohere.com.