FRANKFURT, April 10 (Reuters) – Artificial intelligence companies Cohere of Canada and Aleph Alpha of ‌Germany are in talks to merge ‌and have Berlin’s support for a potential deal, newspaper Handelsblatt ​reported late on Thursday.

Citing government and industry sources, the paper said that the German government would be willing to become a key customer of ‌a combined company, ⁠part of a push to provide digital public services.

“If leading AI companies ⁠from Canada and Germany were to join forces that would send a very strong signal,” ​German Digital ​Minister Karsten Wildberger told ​the paper.

Germany and ‌Canada were already collaborating closely in the field, he was also quoted as saying.

Aleph Alpha told Reuters that regular discussions over strategic partnerships were standard practice in the AI industry and ‌that Aleph Alpha had its ​own independent strategy, declining to ​comment further.

Cohere ​did not immediately respond to a ‌request for comment.

The paper added ​that talks ​started early this year and have reached an advanced stage, with plans for the ​new entity ‌to be headquartered in both countries.

(Reporting by ​Ludwig Burger, Kirsti Knolle and Hakan Ersen, ​Editing by Linda Pasquini)