Israel is investing to lead the global AI race.
The CEO of a state-owned company backed by the Israeli government announced on the 26th that the company will establish the country’s first supercomputer next month and remain a global leader in AI technology.
The chief executive of the state-backed Israel Innovation Authority said Israel is set to launch its first supercomputer on Wednesday to maintain its position as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
“While AI has been a friend of Israel’s tech sector, it could turn into a foe if we don’t take action, given that AI is a fast-evolving technology,” Dror Bin stated at an AI conference.
“We are allocating a budget of $250 million to the national AI program, comprised of government, industry, and academia- 60% of which will be executed in 2024 and completed in 2027, possibly with higher funding.”
The Israeli tech sector accounts for 20% of the country’s economic output, and Israel is widely regarded as one of the largest tech hubs in the world.
Bin also noted that of Israel’s 9,000 startups, more than 2,200 use AI, and Israel—with 73—has the third-most generative AI firms in the world.
“Our goal is to make sure that Israel sustains its leadership, ranking, and position in the global AI race,” he said.
Bin stressed that a supercomputer for training large artificial intelligence models was necessary.
“When a high-tech company or researcher wants to train a large model, they have to buy time in the cloud since there is no local data center equipped with a significant amount of GPUs (graphic processing units) that can train those models here,” he added.
Bin mentioned that the supercomputer will be available for researchers and companies at a lower cost than the market.
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