Israel approves National AI Plan to become global leader as millions face job transformation

Israel approves National AI Plan to strengthen technological self-reliance

Israel is launching a major national plan to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities. The government aims to make the country a global leader in AI technology. This initiative will integrate AI across all sectors, from economy to public services. Israel will focus on developing its own computing power and fostering international partnerships. Tel Aviv: The Israeli government has approved a national plan to accelerate artificial intelligence development, with the goal of positioning Israel as a global leader in the field. Officials said the initiative, formulated under the National Headquarters for Artificial Intelligence in the Prime Minister's Office, will integrate artificial intelligence capabilities across all sectors of the economy and public services while reinforcing Israel's position in global technological competition. "Our goal is clear: to establish Israel as a global leader in artificial intelligence. AI is no longer just a technology--it is a revolution. It will shape the economy, security, science, industry, health, education, and the international standing of the State of Israel," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We will leverage Israel's greatest advantage--its human capital--and transform the country into a global AI powerhouse, as we did with cyber." Brig. Gen. (res. ) Erez Eskel, head of the National Headquarters for Artificial Intelligence, said the decision reflects a "critical strategic moment" for Israel, adding that it "ensures Israel's strength and prosperity in the coming decades." He said Israel is "in a historic window of opportunity," and that today's decisions "will determine the country's position for many years to come." Eskel added that artificial intelligence is becoming "the central power infrastructure of the 21st century," affecting all components of national power. A key pillar of the plan is the expansion of sovereign computing infrastructure, increasing Israel's ability to build and control advanced computing power domestically rather than relying on foreign companies or cloud providers. The government aims to significantly expand national processing capacity, including a target of 100,000 processing units to ensure technological independence. The plan also includes the establishment of a national quantum computer based on Israeli-developed technologies. In parallel, the government will strengthen international partnerships in artificial intelligence research and commercialization. Another component is the creation of a National Institute for Artificial Intelligence, designed to connect government, academia, industry, and investors. The initiative also includes innovation "accelerators," programs designed to fast-track development projects and translate national challenges into applied AI solutions. The government said it will invest heavily in human capital, expanding AI training across schools, universities, and the broader workforce to ensure long-term competitiveness as the labor market adapts to automation and AI-driven change. A national mechanism will also be established to address expected shifts in employment patterns. Additional focus areas include cyber AI, physical AI, and countering deepfake threats. The plan also calls for integrating AI tools into public services to improve efficiency, shorten processing times, and make government information more accessible to citizens.

Can Israel go from Start-Up Nation to AI State?

An illustrative image of the Israeli flag covered in computer pieces and the words "Artificial Intelligence." An Israeli entrepreneur was recently given a three-day ultimatum: shut down his AI start-up or face court. His offense was building a tool that helps citizens draft appeals against unjust parking fines. A professional regulatory body ruled that generating such a letter is a legal act, reserved for licensed practitioners. Today, anyone can get the same letter from an AI model in under a minute. The regulation isn't protecting anyone. It simply hasn't caught up to the era it now governs. This case is a symptom, not an anomaly. Across Israel, AI keeps bumping into regulatory frameworks built for a different era, while the government's public AI conversation stays at altitude, debating national programs and international frameworks. Both conversations matter, but Israel needs a third: where can smarter, proactive regulation use AI to cut bureaucratic waste, reduce costs, and improve daily life for the people who live here? Legislators in every developed country are asking that question and failing to answer it. Israel has a chance to lead, but that requires honesty: its tech sector didn't flourish because government built it; it flourished because government got out of the way. The AI State requires the opposite instinct, not less regulation but smarter regulation, frameworks that enable citizen-facing services rather than protect the status quo. That is harder to build. It is also a more valuable export. From vision to implementation Consider what's possible in education. Every child in Israel, whether in Tel Aviv or Rahat, Bnei Brak, or Kiryat Shmona, deserves a patient tutor who adapts to their pace, language, and level. Until recently, that kind of personalized instruction was available only to children whose parents could afford it. AI changes that. A student with access to a capable large language model has something close to a personal tutor with deep knowledge across every subject, available at midnight before an exam, in Arabic, Hebrew, or Russian, at whatever level they need. Israel has taken early steps. The Education Ministry declared 2025 the "Year of AI" and launched a regulatory sandbox to test personalized learning tools in public schools. But declarations are not infrastructure, and a sandbox is not a system; most classrooms still operate exactly as they did a decade ago. The opportunity is a mandate: universal, regulated access to AI learning tools for every student, not as an enrichment program for schools that opt in, but as a baseline right. Few countries, if any, guarantee this for every student. Israel is well positioned to be among the first, if it moves from declaration to delivery. The same logic applies to taxation. Israel's Tax Authority already holds the data it needs to give citizens money they are owed. Tax-deductible donations under Section 46 require citizens to collect receipts, submit documentation, and wait for manual recognition, a process that routinely fails elderly and working-class Israelis who don't know their entitlements or can't navigate the paperwork. From 2026, public institutions must report donations through a new digital system. Without AI-assisted matching of records to tax files and proactive notification to eligible citizens, that system will under-serve exactly the people it was built for. The data exists. The mandate to use it does not. And the same gap shows up in permitting. A building permit in Israel takes an average of more than 300 days, roughly three times the Western average. Opening a restaurant, a daycare, or a clinic means redundant submissions across disconnected offices, each with its own timeline. AI can automate document verification, flag incomplete submissions, and route applications between departments in real time. Estonia has built AI-enabled public service agents that let citizens access government through a single channel, at any time. Israel already has pilots testing pieces of this. The task is to turn those pilots into mandates, with ministers held accountable for outcomes, not activity. These three cases share a structure that runs across Israeli public life, in healthcare administration, immigration processing, welfare eligibility, and beyond. The government holds the data. The tools exist. Citizens are still made to wait, repeat themselves, and pay for help they shouldn't need. The barrier is not technological. It is bureaucratic and political. Israelis will go to the polls in the coming months. Every party will claim to champion innovation; few will be asked to specify what that means. Citizens should ask their candidates a direct question: which of you will mandate, not merely pilot, the use of AI to cut bureaucracy and serve citizens better? The Start-Up Nation was built by getting out of the way. The AI State will be built by stepping up. Whoever leads next should be judged on whether they understand the difference. Before joining Lightricks as chief of staff, the writer dealt with diplomacy and public policy, working as an adviser to the education, Diaspora affairs, and tourism ministers, as well as for the Jewish Agency and Ruderman Family Foundation.

Israel attempts an AI catch-up revolution as four million people will likely need to change jobs

While Israel is considered a dominant player in the cybersecurity field, and part of that means using artificial intelligence (AI) in smart ways in that arena, in the broader AI context, Jerusalem is behind and now trying to play catch-up. On Tuesday, the government approved a new, wide-ranging series of AI policies that could spark a rally and change the lives of all Israelis in the workplace, in education, and eventually in every area of life as the world accelerates in this rapidly advancing field. This decision is the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointing ex-9900 intelligence chief, Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Askal on October 12, 2025, to be the country's first AI Chief, to work alongside Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) Chief Yossi Karadi. Since then, Askal has worked hard to identify the many fronts on which Israel must move forward in its use and understanding of AI, as well as to determine how best to leverage Israel's strengths over the course of a multi-year campaign on the issue. The Jerusalem Post understands that the new AI bureau's efforts have revealed that Israel's greatest strengths regarding AI are 1) Integrating and combining cyber security and artificial intelligence to "rub off" well on each other; and 2) Edge solutions - coming up with practical new ideas for solving problems in the field, and in war, on the frontlines. It is also considered a plus that Askal and INCD Chief Karadi have known each other for years from their days in Israeli intelligence, so they can work together without ego and without missing a beat. What will the IDF's AI bureau do? The AI bureau expects that it will help: 1) Israel implement home-developed solutions and programs as opposed to requiring foreign solutions; 2) Israeli companies have products to physically manufacture from which they can make profits; 3) Pursue regulations to create order in this new area, while avoiding over regulation which stifles innovation; and 4) Mix big data and machine learning capabilities with addressing real world problems in powerful new ways. Following the government decision, Netanyahu said, "The purpose is clear: to establish Israel as a world leader in the area of AI because AI is not just another technology - it is a revolution. It will impact the economy, security, science, industry, health, education, and the State of Israel's international status." Askal stated, "This decision ensures the power and achievements of Israel for the upcoming decades. In the coming years, it will become clear which countries succeed in establishing their place at the forefront of the world during the age of AI, and which will be forced to rely on the technology, infrastructure, and capabilities which others will develop." At a conference on June 2, Askal made a major public performance, declaring, "While the great powers in the world are preoccupied with a crazy-paced arms race regarding the major layers of AI: research and development, energy, and modeling, the entire world is stuck in the embarrassing situation asking: what do we do with this tomorrow morning?" "This is exactly where Israel's comparative advantage exists: when the giant blue Ocean of AI meets [people's] real lives. The ability to inject AI into the physical world and onto [solving] life's problems, to take an aircraft or drip irrigation and to make them 'smarter' - is a critical growth engine for us." Why is Israel behind on AI? One thing Askal cannot say in public, given the sensitivity of his position, is that Israel initially fell behind in AI for a number of obvious reasons. These include that Israel: has less space to build data centers, it has less natural resources to cover the immense energy needs of such data centers, and its success in cyber security was driven in many ways by the private sector, with the government only following, whereas big AI projects need heavy government investment and interventions, which Israel's government is slower at for new projects, the Post understands. All of this means that the AI bureau will be trying to take on a new coordinator role to facilitate the private sector working together toward clearer, more specific national AI goals, rather than only their own narrow business interests. So the government may not build large new infrastructure projects for AI on its own, but may encourage and facilitate tens of thousands of projects, including some large ones, as well as serve as a "plumber" of sorts, trying to scrap red tape that might slow down new projects. One project is in education, where Israeli universities, in coordination with Askal, will roll out a brand-new AI degree in October. Computer science as a degree may not be gone, but this AI degree may start to supplant it as more relevant for the next stage of the job market. That is at the entry level. For Israelis already in the workplace, one million, and for some issues, possibly up to four million, are likely to need partial or complete reskilling and retraining, either to keep their current roles or to take on new ones. Another massive project is building enormously powerful and expensive data centers throughout Israel, especially in the Negev desert of the Israeli South. The government decision on Tuesday commits to building around 100,000 GPUs dedicated to AI data centers. Already in mid-May, the Wall Street Journal reported, and the Post can confirm, that the US is examining the possibility of establishing a secure AI base in the Negev as part of a broader effort to protect advanced technology from China and cement American dominance in the AI race. American and Israeli officials have been working on a joint initiative known in Israel as Project Spire. The proposed facility would combine the security standards of a US military installation with the research and engineering culture of a major technology hub. The plan has centered on three Israeli-proposed sites in the western Negev. Israel would provide the land through a long-term lease for American use, while the facility itself would be designed to host research and development, major server infrastructure, dedicated energy systems, chip design, AI model training, and potentially advanced semiconductor production. Further, Askal will pursue international cooperation on AI with a host of countries. This is only one part of efforts by Askal's agency and the Israeli government in general to build up a series of new IA data centers in the Negev and elsewhere. Until now, a variety of substantive and procedural hurdles have slowed approvals for starting to build such data centers for years, whereas some other locations, such as in Texas, have reduced their approvals process to a period of months. Askal hopes to streamline approvals and also to attract more Israeli investors into this arena, while some already have been seeking to enter since late 2026, and even more in 2026. Last week, Calcalist reported on meetings of Israel's representatives in a major AI and data center conference in Cannes by Shelly Landsmann, the former CEO of Microsoft Israel and today a founding partner of data center company NED and chair of its advisory board. Also last week, Kardan Israel announced the establishment of a subsidiary that will consolidate its activity in data centers, with stakes in server farms in Kfar Saba and Shoham. Another prominent figure in the new trend is Ofer Yanai, the controlling shareholder of Nofar Energy, who last week purchased land in Shoham for NIS 361 million to construct a new data center, Calcalist reported. Companies such as MedOne, which operates four facilities in Israel; Bynet, which operates sites in Shoham, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv; and Bezeq International, which operates a communications facility in Petah Tikva, have been in this market for a long time but are now seeking to significantly up their game. The government decision includes additional investment in building Israeli quantum computers. That effort had started in recent years, but prior funding allocated for it had run out and needed to be renewed. According to the government decision, new institutions, such as an institute dedicated to identifying and exploiting key accelerators for how AI can be used in various industries and areas of life, and a special focus on advancing physical AI, including identifying and combating DEEP FAKE AI, will be established.