When Intel chose Israel decades ago, it didn’t simply build factories or R&D centers. It helped reposition Israel inside the global computing economy. Intel trained generations of engineers, embedded Israel into semiconductor supply chains, and allowed the country to think long-term about infrastructure, talent, and industrial scale.
Today, Nvidia’s expanding investment in Israel represents a comparable inflection point: this time not in microprocessors, but in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Yet history offers a clear warning: anchor companies do not automatically become national engines of growth. Israel's deliberate complementary bets magnified Intel’s impact. If Israel wants Nvidia to shape its AI future the way Intel shaped its chip past, it must once again choose wisely.
From Intel’s era to Nvidia’s moment
Intel anchored Israel in the hardware age with manufacturing discipline, systems thinking, and global reliability. Nvidia anchors the AI age with accelerated computing, networking, software platforms, and full-stack system optimization.
This is not about apps or consumer AI. Nvidia sits at the heart of how intelligence is produced, scaled, and deployed worldwide. Israel’s opportunity is not just to host Nvidia, but to cartelize a network effect indispensable to the global AI ecosystem that Nvidia leads.
That requires three national bets.
Bet #1: Build a national pipeline of AI systems engineers
Intel’s greatest contribution wasn’t silicon; it was people. Israel produced engineers who understood entire systems, not just components. These then went on to build other companies or were acquired by competing international corporations, which followed suit by establishing operations in Israel.
AI requires the same depth, but in a similar way. Israel already excels at algorithms, cybersecurity, and applied innovation. Nvidia adds exposure to parallel computing at scale, model–hardware co-design, performance, latency, and energy trade-offs.
Israel’s bet:
Deliberately train AI systems engineers, not only data scientists. That means updating university curricula to emphasize systems, networking, and parallel computing, and expanding military-to-civilian pipelines into AI infrastructure roles. And funding applied research tied to real, large-scale AI systems.
This is how Intel seeded Israel’s hardware leadership. It is how Nvidia can seed AI leadership – if Israel widens the funnel, Nvidia is even likely to assist in training these cohorts.
Bet #2: Treat AI infrastructure as strategic national infrastructure
Intel’s fabs forced Israel to plan decades ahead- about power, land, logistics, and regulation. That seriousness anchored Israel as a credible industrial-tech nation.
AI requires a new version of that mindset, but at an even grander scale. Nvidia-driven ecosystems depend on reliable, high-capacity electricity, advanced data centers, cooling, networking, and energy resilience.
Israel’s bet:
Treat AI infrastructure like ports, power grids, and highways. This requires streamlined permitting for data centers and compute facilities. Coordinated national energy planning that anticipates AI demand. Public–private partnerships for shared compute and research infrastructure. Furthermore, Israel can excel by building an AI-ready regulatory environment that balances speed with trust.
Countries that host AI infrastructure will shape AI’s evolution. Others will merely consume it. NVIDIA is at the heart of many of the international conversations of this nature. Israel must leverage this.
Bet #3: Anchor Israel inside a global AI ecosystem through the Abraham Accords
Intel embedded Israel in global supply chains. Nvidia’s era demands something broader: global AI ecosystems. AI infrastructure is inherently international - compute, data, energy, markets, and talent cross borders. Israel cannot maximize spillover alone.
Israel’s bet:
Use the Abraham Accords as a platform for a regional and global AI alliance. This includes joint AI infrastructure projects with partner nations, cross-border research and data collaboration, regional compute, energy, and cloud integration.
While Israel’s national-level AI investment is pitiful, its private sector, combined with partnerships with international conglomerates, can deliver meaningful impact.
The choice ahead
Intel first established a presence in Israel in 1974. It liked what it saw and, eight years later, expanded dramatically, spearheading a technology wave that created much of the start-up nation we see today. In a similar fashion, Nvidia too has been impressed by its Israeli site and is now doubling down.
Neither of these companies hires thousands of expensive engineers for altruistic or Zionist reasons; rather, they hire them because they value the impressive local talent that ultimately helps their bottom line. But Israel, on the other hand, can benefit from their leading position to anchor itself into the coming wave of new technologies.
The writer is managing partner at Hetz Ventures.