American technology giant NVIDIA plans to build a massive, multibillion dollar tech center in northern Israel, catapulting it into becoming the largest hi tech employer in the country and further solidifying Israel’s position as a leading global technology center amid the regional turmoil, officials said this week.
The Santa Clara, California-based chip giant, which last week became the most valuable company in history, valued at $4 trillion, has received scores of offers from Israeli municipalities in reply to its formal request for information regarding land on which to build a new hi tech campus near its current facility in the northern Israeli city of Yokneam, a high-tech hub 13 miles from the port city of Haifa.
“This is a long-term strategic investment in Israel, and is a great sign of confidence in the Israeli tech industry,” the CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority Dror Bin told JNS on Wednesday.
“Especially in light of what has happened [in the region] over the last two years, it is amazing to see the value that they derive from their Israeli activity,” said Yariv Becher, vice president of partnerships at Startup Nation Central, an Israeli nonprofit promoting innovation. “It shows the important role that Israeli high-tech plays in the technological revolution.”
Focus on AI R&D in Israel
The corporation, which was founded in 1993, made its foray into Israel eight years ago with a small team conducting research in Artificial Intelligence. The high-end AI chip designer then bought Israel’s Mellanox Technologies, a multi-national supplier of computer networking products, for nearly $7 billion in 2020, quickly expanding its presence with critical Israeli R&D to become one of Israel’s biggest tech employers, with seven labs crisscrossing the country from the north to the south.
Earlier this year, the computing juggernaut announced that it is establishing a new $500 million artificial intelligence research and engineering data center in Israel, in one of the largest and most advanced such labs in the country. It has also built Israel’s most powerful AI supercomputer.
Nvidia now employs more than 5,000 workers in Israel, nearly 15 percent of its total 36,000 global workforce, with 250 positions in the country currently open.
Many of Nvidia’s high-end processors and networking chips, used in the largest AI models, are developed at its R&D centers in Israel. As global tech firms including Microsoft,(the second-most valuable U.S. company) Meta Platforms, Alphabet, and Tesla race to build AI data centers and dominate the emerging technology market, demand for Nvidia’s most advanced products is surging.
The mammoth new campus of up to 180,000 square meters is expected to generate thousands more jobs and provide a huge boost both to the north of Israel, which was hard-hit during the war against Hezbollah last year and the country’s highly respected tech sector.
The project—one of the biggest investments in technology in Israel—is expected to see Nvidia surpass rival Intel—which has been in Israel for the last half century but is trimming its global workforce—as the largest hi tech employer in the country.
The head of Israel’s Innovation Authority said that the plan, which will take several years, is seen as doubling the number of employees at Nvidia Israel and speaks to the country’s ability to recruit top-notch talents in the field.
The net results of such a move, experts say, also go beyond Israel’s top tier industry.
“The economic implications and benefits reach far beyond tech companies and sends both a boost and a signal to global investors that Israel is a place that you need to look at and have confidence in their activity,” said Becher.
Wartime support
Over the last two years of war with Hamas, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, the son of Taiwanese American immigrants, has voiced staunch support for his Israeli team, offering some of the strongest backing from any of the heads of the hundreds of international hi tech corporations operating in Israel.
The company also donated $15 million to help Israel in the wake of the war.
The new project, which is expected to get underway in the coming months, will make the company’s presence in Israel the second biggest hub in the world outside the United States.
