Israel Active

Israel’s GrowDirector has developed a modular greenhouse automation system to reduce input costs, water, electricity, fertilizers, and labor. Farmers can track crop details, schedule planting, spraying, receive reminders, analyze and refine protocols to avoid repeating mistakes.

Israel’s Technion is part of an international team that has determined how to scale up decoupled water electrolysis (DWE, see previously) - a technique that produces green hydrogen without carbon emissions or expensive hardware.

Researchers at Israel’s Technion Institute, and at University of Texas Austin, have mapped the nano-properties of desalination membranes in their wet state – never achieved before. The information will help design membranes that will desalinate seawater more efficiently, using less energy.

Israel’s startup ecosystem is punching far above its weight in the global semiconductor race. With $5.5 billion raised collectively, 70 startups are positioning Israel as a key player in next-generation chips and AI models.

Israel’s ZutaCore has established another cool partnership (see for previous one) this time with Taiwan’s Compal. The integrated server and cooling solution aims to “revolutionize data center efficiency, reliability, and sustainability”.

Israel has appointed Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Askal to head its newly established National Artificial Intelligence Headquarters. It will oversee the creation and execution of Israel’s AI strategy, focusing on innovation, regulation, infrastructure and research while bolstering Israel’s international standing in the field.

Israel’s Vast Data (see previously) has entered a strategic partnership with Israel’s Shonfeld Data Services (SDS) to power what is being described as Israel’s most advanced sovereign AI infrastructure. It will be built on Vast’s AI Operating System.

18-year-old Raz Dvora won the top prize at the International Mathematics Competition for University Students, just weeks after graduating high school. He had simultaneously been studying undergraduate mathematics at the Open University of Israel’s Academia in High School program.

As planned (see previously) for the first time in the world, desalinated seawater is being pumped into a freshwater lake, as Israel transfers Mediterranean water into the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret). The “Reverse Carrier” initiative will keep the level of the Kinneret above the “Red line”.

A team of Ben Gurion University Professors and students has won an Ig Nobel – the international science prize for making people laugh and then think. They published a study to reveal what happens to bats when they get drunk. They won ten trillion Zimbabwe dollars (60 cents in 2008).