Israel to build supercomputer to keep up in global AI race

Next month, Israel will launch a tender to establish the country's first supercomputer to ensure it remains a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Israel will launch a tender next month to establish the country's first supercomputer to ensure it remains a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, the chief executive of the state-backed Israel Innovation Authority said Wednesday.

Speaking at an AI conference, Dror Bin noted that while AI has been an ally for Israel's technology sector, it could become an enemy without action, given that AI is a rapidly evolving technology.

He noted that the government is budgeting $250 million in a national AI program composed of government, industry and academia, 60% of which will run in 2024 and be completed in 2027, possibly with further funding.

Technology accounts for 20% of Israel's economic output and the country is widely regarded as one of the world's largest technology centers. 

Bin noted that of Israel's 9,000 startups, more than 2,200 use AI and that Israel, with 73, has the third largest number of generative AI companies in the world.

"Our goal is to ensure and guarantee that Israel maintains its leadership, ranking and position in the AI race in the world," he said.

Bin said that a supercomputer to train large artificial intelligence models was crucial in this regard.

"When a high-tech company or a researcher wants to train a large model, they have to buy time in the cloud because there is no local data center with a significant amount of GPUs (graphics processing units) that can train those models here," he said.

The supercomputer, Bin added, will be available to researchers and companies at below-market cost.

Collaboration: Grupo Auge | Reuters (International).