Jerusalem, 9 November, 2026 (TPS-IL) — Israel plans to develop its own advanced artificial intelligence model so that its power grid, water systems and hospitals do not rely on technology controlled by foreign companies, the head of the National AI Directorate said Monday.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Askal, who leads the directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, told the Cyber and AI Week conference at Tel Aviv University that essential systems such as electricity, water and healthcare will rely increasingly on AI within five to seven years. “If a country’s critical infrastructure runs on artificial intelligence that is not under its control, it will not have full control over its own country,” he said.
Askal cited two concerns. Commercial companies act in their own business interests, which may not match those of the state, and access to their services cannot be guaranteed over the long term.
Open-source models are not a complete answer either, he said. The leading models are available mainly through the cloud services of foreign firms, and it is unclear whether open models will remain open.
Askal proposed an Israeli model, though not necessarily one built alone. “I believe we can do this together with countries that share similar challenges,” he said, without naming potential partners. He acknowledged that the effort will require data, budgets and time, but said Israel has no choice.
Computing build-out
Running such models requires computing capacity that Israel does not currently have. Askal set a target of roughly 300,000 GPUs: about 100,000 for academia, government, the defense establishment and startups, and 200,000 to support the growth of tech companies and data centers. The build-out would require about two gigawatts of additional electrical capacity for data centers and chip manufacturing plants, he said.
The announcement follows work begun in recent months. In early August, the directorate and the Finance Ministry’s Accountant General’s office launched the execution phase of the national AI program. It included a tender for a national quantum computer and two requests for information, one on a testing ground for AI in the physical world and one on a foundation-model strategy. Foundation models are large systems on which other AI applications and services are built.
The directorate also launched the National Institute for Impact-Oriented AI, which will focus on nine national challenges, including healthcare, education, population aging, and environment and climate. Askal cited examples such as raising fourth-graders’ math scores, easing traffic on Highway 6, and improving the first meeting between a doctor and a patient. Earlier reports put the investment in the institute at several tens of millions of shekels.
Askal said AI should be used to strengthen cyber defense, that AI systems must themselves be protected from attack and misuse, and that regulation should keep pace with the field.
Governments in several regions have begun treating AI capacity as a matter of national sovereignty, alongside energy, food supply and defense manufacturing. Sovereignty, Askal argued, means owning the model that infrastructure runs on, not just the infrastructure itself.
“Countries that act will preserve control over their future,” he said at the close of his remarks. “Israel has decided to act.”