Canada defends AI talks with the Gulf amid escalating security scrutiny
At the moment Ottawa announced a $1.6 billion investment in the Canadian AI firm Cohere to keep it domestic, Canadian AI minister Evan Solomon found himself defending a completely different external front. During the conference he held in Montreal alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney, journalists' questions ranged from government support for the Canadian model to the expanded talks and agreements the minister concluded over the past year with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel, moves that are facing heightened scrutiny in Western and rights-focused circles.
Tech diplomacy is inseparable from the complex security calculations on the ground.That is what Solomon’s answers revealed when he was asked about his January meeting with Israeli ambassador Eido Moed; the minister defended his government’s course, confirming that he had undertaken extensive tours in the Middle East, received an Emirati delegation, visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and met multiple ambassadors to discuss current issues. Solomon stressed that his country will continue developing Canadian technologies in a safe, appropriate and reliable manner, while these justifications face sharp criticism because the Israeli army uses AI systems to target locations in Gaza and the West Bank, such as the ‘Lafender’ system for generating automated targeting lists and the ‘Where’s My Dad?’ system for tracking and surveillance.
The Canadian trajectory extends to the Gulf through concrete regulatory and defence steps, as Solomon visited the UAE and Qatar last year and signed with the Emirati side an agreement to develop technical expertise exchange, support investment in advanced technologies and promote responsible AI. In parallel with the software coordination, Carney’s government concluded additional memoranda of understanding with the UAE covering military affairs and defence cooperation, which prompted an explicit attack from international organisations such as the Post-War World organisation through its representative Rachel Small, who described the defence cooperation as unjustified in light of accusations of financing and supporting military operations in Sudan and Yemen, alongside the longstanding scrutiny over the use of surveillance and hacking technologies.
In Riyadh, Solomon’s February visit focused on infrastructure themes, according to an official statement from Canada’s Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The statement said the discussions centred on strengthening practical cooperation in AI, digital infrastructure and emerging technologies, highlighting a strong alignment between Canadian strengths and the priorities of Saudi Vision 2030, especially in building local capabilities and expanding data and high-performance computing systems to accelerate innovation-driven growth, despite references to Riyadh’s previous use of American targeting systems in the Yemen war and the deployment of surveillance tools domestically.
When Western countries seek to secure their sovereign investments, Gulf computing appetite becomes their preferred lifeline.For anyone who leads AI architecture or manages technology budgets in the Gulf, Egypt or the Levant, this picture carries a strategic implication that goes beyond political statements: Canada is looking for capital and regional data centres to protect the independence of companies such as Cohere from being swallowed, but this openness is not a clean commercial sheet; it is constrained by security requirements and parliamentary debate that could at any moment turn into licensing restrictions and limits on expertise export. If your organisation relies on Western technologies presented as sovereign partnerships, your primary step is to assess geopolitical risk, as any rights-based escalation in Ottawa’s parliament could halt model supply or software knowledge exchange overnight.
The Canadian stance demonstrates that the era of commercial innocence in AI deals is completely over, as expansion in computing and data systems is now automatically linked to defence dossiers and the foreign policies of exporting countries. The regional capitals’ bet on expanding infrastructure and building self-reliance remains the decisive path to reduce exposure to Western policy volatility, while international tech partnerships, however promising they may appear, remain governed by security boundaries and domestic political pressure.