LawZero, a Montréal-based nonprofit startup founded by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, has secured up to CAD $300 million in joint funding from the governments of Canada and Germany. The announcement was made at the ALL IN conference in Montréal and represents a major step toward building advanced artificial intelligence that is safe by design. The investment reflects growing international demand for sovereign AI systems that prioritize trust, transparency, and human values.
Joint Government Backing for Safe AI
The funding commitment was announced by Canadian and German officials alongside LawZero leadership. It is intended to accelerate the organization's technical roadmap and support the development of Scientist AI, a new class of AI designed to reason transparently and avoid autonomous goal pursuit. The collaboration underscores both countries' interest in strengthening technological sovereignty in next-generation artificial intelligence.
What the Funding Will Support
LawZero plans to use the investment to grow its international scientific research team and secure dedicated computing capacity. It will open a new office in Berlin, Germany, expanding its European operations and contributing to the region's innovation ecosystem. In Canada, LawZero will establish sovereign compute infrastructure in partnership with Hypertec and 5C to anchor critical AI capabilities at home.
A Safe-by-Design Alternative
Scientist AI is the organization's flagship approach and treats reliability as a core capability from the outset. Unlike current frontier AI systems that can act autonomously and pursue their own goals, Scientist AI is designed to reason transparently and produce evidence-based outputs. LawZero expects it to provide guardrails for existing models, accelerate scientific discovery, and improve understanding of AI risks.
Why This Matters Now
The announcement comes amid mounting concerns about the behavior and safety of frontier AI systems. Researchers have highlighted risks including deception, self-preservation, and goal misalignment in advanced models. LawZero was founded to address these challenges by building systems that are safe from inception rather than retrofitted with safeguards after development.
Leadership Perspectives
Canada's Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon, said the investment strengthens sovereign AI capacity and ensures next-generation systems are built safely and responsibly. Germany's Federal Minister for Digitalization and Government Modernization, Dr. Karsten Wildberger, described the project as a safe-by-design model that works on facts rather than pursuing its own objectives. Bengio called the backing a defining moment that moves the mission into a new global phase.
Building on Strong Foundations
LawZero was incubated at Mila, the Québec AI institute also founded by Bengio, and has already received backing from major philanthropic and industry sources. These include the Gates Foundation, Schmidt Sciences, the Future of Life Institute, NVIDIA, and Jaan Tallinn. The new government funding builds on that foundation and positions LawZero to expand its research and infrastructure footprint internationally.
The joint Canadian-German investment signals strong confidence in LawZero's mission to create AI systems that are both highly capable and safe. It also highlights a growing recognition that safety must be treated as a fundamental capability rather than an afterthought. With new infrastructure, international expansion, and a dedicated research agenda, LawZero aims to provide a trustworthy alternative for the future of artificial intelligence.