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Description

Canada and Germany signed an AI cooperation agreement at the Munich Security Conference, launching the Sovereign Technology Alliance. The deal focuses on compute infrastructure, AI research, and talent development. It explicitly names Yoshua Bengio's LawZero as a potential area for collaboration. The signing comes as the Munich conference wrapped with warnings about "wrecking-ball politics" and the fracturing of the rules-based international order. This episode examines what the declaration actually does, what it doesn't do, and how it fits into Canada's broader pivot toward middle-power partnerships.

Sources:

https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2026/02/canada-and-germany-sign-ai-joint-declaration-and-launch-sovereign-technology-alliance.html

https://globalnews.ca/news/11668118/canada-signs-ai-declaration-germany/

https://lawzero.org/en/news/yoshua-bengio-launches-lawzero-new-nonprofit-advancing-safe-design-ai

https://time.com/7290554/yoshua-bengio-launches-lawzero-for-safer-ai/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/munich-security-trump-carney-9.7077801

https://securityconference.org/en/publications/munich-security-report/2026/

https://www.canadianaffairs.news/2026/02/11/how-ai-is-affecting-canadas-job-market/

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/carney-cancels-trip-to-europe-following-bc-school-shooting/

Tags

AI North Brief, Canadian AI, AI Policy, Canada Germany, Sovereign Technology Alliance, Munich Security Conference, Evan Solomon, LawZero, Yoshua Bengio, AI Safety, Sovereign Compute, Mark Carney

Chapter Markers

00:00 Intro 00:45 What the Declaration Actually Does 02:30 The Context That Matters 04:00 What It Does Not Do 05:30 The Bigger Picture