Chip giant NVIDIA to build new Israeli campus, expand R&D operations

 NVIDIA already employs 5,000 people in Israel, making its R&D operation in the country the company’s largest outside the United States. 

By Pesach Benson, TPS

NVIDIA is planning a major expansion in Israel, signaling its long-term commitment to the country’s tech sector with a new campus that could triple its current workforce.

The global chipmaker submitted a Request for Information (RFI) on Sunday, seeking to purchase up to 120 dunams (30 acres) of land near Yokneam, where its Israeli headquarters are located.

The land would host a sprawling research and development complex of up to 180,000 square meters—roughly four times the size of Microsoft’s Herzliya campus.

The RFI said the site must be immediately available for construction and easily accessible by major highways and public transportation. The company did not rule out acquiring land from municipalities, kibbutzim, or moshavim.

“We are proud of our Israeli team and excited to deepen our presence here,” an NVIDIA spokesperson said. “The talent and innovation coming out of Israel continue to play a critical role in our global success.”

NVIDIA already employs 5,000 people in Israel, making its R&D operation in the country the company’s largest outside the United States.

The new campus is expected to accommodate thousands more employees and house hundreds of labs and engineering teams working on cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, communications software and hardware, and CPUs.

The announcement follows NVIDIA’s $500 million investment earlier this year in a new data center, also in northern Israel.

That facility, spanning 10,000 square meters, will support internal operations and serve as home to the Israel-1 supercomputer, which was built locally and recently ranked among the world’s top 40 supercomputers.

Much of the California-based NVIDIA’s success in Israel can be traced back to its 2020 acquisition of Mellanox, a Yokneam-based company specializing in high-speed networking.

That deal not only expanded NVIDIA’s hardware portfolio but also established a strong development base in Israel that has since been central to the company’s AI breakthroughs.

The Israel-1 supercomputer, developed using the locally built Spectrum-X platform, exemplifies this synergy.

NVIDIA’s high-performance chips—particularly its A100 and H100 GPUs—are essential tools in training large AI models like ChatGPT. “Our processors are powering the AI revolution,” the company said. “And Israel is right at the heart of that effort.”

Now valued at over $3.9 trillion, NVIDIA briefly became the world’s most valuable company last week.