Aleph Alpha: Kolibri Models and the Cohere Agreement

Models for controlled deployment

Aleph Alpha is a German model developer focused on government and regulated-industry use. Its own company description says it was founded in 2019. Its contribution includes developing specialized language models and deployment systems that customers can operate with control over infrastructure and data, rather than only distributing another provider's API. [1]

The company released Kolibri in October 2026, with German and English support and downloadable weights. Its mixture-of-experts architecture has about 78 billion total parameters and 3.46 billion active per token. The model card identifies Apache 2.0 for the published weights and configuration files. Developer-run evaluations are evidence of the company's testing, rather than a general certification of compliance or accuracy. [2]

The dated company announcement was published October 5 but explicitly says the model had been available since October 3. That access statement establishes the release day; the later news post's publication is a different date. [1]

A combination still awaiting approval

Aleph Alpha and Cohere signed a definitive combination agreement in September 2026. The proposed company would operate as Cohere, but the October Kolibri announcement still described the transaction as subject to regulatory approval and Aleph Alpha as independent until closing. This record therefore does not infer completed parent ownership from the agreement. [3][1]