Cohere establishes Defence AI Accelerator in Singapore

Cohere, a provider of sovereign AI for regulated industries and governments, established a Defence AI Accelerator in Singapore. The hub is designed for defence organizations and other sovereign customers that seek to move AI work from experimentation into operational deployment in highly secure environments.

According to IDC, cited in the release, 80% of APAC enterprises are expected to prioritize AI sovereignty for mission-critical workloads. The release also describes sovereign AI as the region's second-highest government investment priority. The company's stated goals include expanding support for the public sector in Singapore and strengthening collaboration with public sector institutions.

The accelerator functions as a dedicated hub for defence-focused AI work, offering hands-on collaboration, technical expertise, and engineering advisory. Participants can test Cohere's models and the North agentic AI platform in real-world environments and scale proven solutions into operational infrastructure. Cohere's platform supports on-premises, air-gapped, and hybrid deployments, and the North platform has been successfully deployed with several regulated organizations in Singapore.

Participants gain access to technology, expertise, and deployment support intended to run AI securely at scale. The offering includes engineering collaboration with Cohere staff to move projects from proof-of-concept to production, along with secure environments to develop, test, and validate applications for mission-critical use cases.

Additional elements include integration support for existing systems, workflows, and operational environments, flexible deployment across on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped infrastructure, governance frameworks and administrative controls for managing AI systems, and access to enterprise-grade models and the North platform for high-priority workloads and large-scale deployments.

“Across the region, governments and enterprises are moving beyond experimentation and looking for trusted partners to help them deploy agentic AI in secure operational environments,” said Andrew Chang, Vice President of APAC, Cohere. “The Defence AI Accelerator brings together Cohere's sovereign AI platform, engineering expertise, and deployment experience to help customers build, test, and scale AI systems that meet the highest standards for security, governance, and operational reliability.”

Cohere also plans to quadruple its regional presence by the end of 2027 through new investments, local partnerships, and additional offices across APAC.