Canada Considers Building Public Sovereign AI

Canada is debating its AI future after the Carney administration announced a $2-billion, five-year Sovereign AI Compute Strategy on March 11, 2026. The essay criticizes proposals that would route infrastructure through U.S. firms such as OpenAI’s "OpenAI for Countries" and urges creating a publicly funded Canadian AI model modeled on Switzerland’s Apertus. It argues public AI would retain value, ensure democratic oversight, and support domestic applications.