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RBC Thought Leadership AI, Technology and Innovation Two Middle Powers, One AI Bet: Canada and Germany’s Tech Alliance
AI, Technology and Innovation
AI, Technology and Innovation

Two Middle Powers, One AI Bet: Canada and Germany's Tech Alliance

This episode of Disruptors is recorded live at ALL IN 2026 in Montreal

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Germany arrived at ALL IN 2026 in Montreal as the conference’s Country of Honour, sending its largest-ever delegation of business leaders to Canada’s biggest AI gathering. The visit came in the same week Canada and Germany’s governments backed LawZero, the Montreal AI safety lab founded by Yoshua Bengio — one of several concrete deals now anchoring a fast-growing Canada-Germany tech relationship, alongside the Cohere-Aleph Alpha merger and last year’s Canada-Germany Digital Alliance.

On this episode of Disruptors, hosts John Stackhouse and Nora Bieberstein — recording live from the show floor — sit down with three people at the center of that relationship. Yvonne Denz, President & CEO of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, explains what’s changed in the decade she’s spent encouraging German companies to do business in Canada, and what a looming manufacturing workforce gap means for both countries. Robert Jozic of Schwarz Digits — the digital arm of the group behind Lidl and Kaufland — talks about why his company backed the Cohere-Aleph Alpha merger and how “middle powers” can compete against American hyperscalers. Dr. Ralf Wintergerst of Giesecke+Devrient and Bitkom connects Germany’s industrial base with Canada’s AI research strength, and explains G+D’s role building the offline component of the digital euro.

The throughline: two innovation-rich, scale-constrained countries betting that partnership — not self-sufficiency — is the faster path to technological sovereignty.

FAQs

Yvonne Denz is President & CEO of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (AHK Kanada), a role she’s held since 2020 after joining as Vice President in 2014. The Chamber represents roughly 300 German member companies doing business in Canada.

Robert Jozic is EVP of Digital Strategy & Ecosystems at Schwarz Digits and Managing Director of Schwarz Media, part of the Schwarz Group — the parent company of Lidl and Kaufland, and one of Europe’s largest retailers.

Dr. Ralf Wintergerst is Group CEO of Giesecke+Devrient, a Munich-based security technology company, and President of Bitkom, Germany’s digital industry association.

There are three deals including Cohere’s merger with Germany’s Aleph Alpha, backed with a Schwarz Group investment; Canada and Germany’s joint government commitment to LawZero, Yoshua Bengio’s AI safety lab, announced at ALL IN 2026; and the Canada-Germany Digital Alliance and Sovereign Technology Alliance signed by both governments over the past year.

Germany sent its largest-ever trade delegation to ALL IN 2026, and the two governments backed that visit with real commitments — including the LawZero funding — signalling growing interest in Canadian AI research, sovereign compute and critical minerals as Germany looks to diversify away from U.S. technology dependence

That mid-sized economies may gain more from combining complementary strengths — Canada’s AI research and resources, Germany’s industrial base and capital — than from trying to replicate the full American or Chinese technology stack alone.

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