American technology giant Nvidia on Thursday officially announced plans to build a major new campus in northern Israel, unveiling details of a project expected to have a dramatic impact on employment, housing and development throughout the region.
The investment in the massive campus, to be located in Kiryat Tivon, is estimated at several billion shekels over a number of years. Construction is slated to begin in 2027, with initial occupancy planned for 2031.
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The new Nvidia campus planned to be constructed in Kiryat Tivon
(Illustration: Nvidia)
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company with a market value of about $4.3 trillion, plans to develop the site on roughly 22 acres, with some 160,000 square meters of built space. The design will be led by Nvidia’s international architectural team and take inspiration from the company’s striking headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
The campus will include green spaces, a visitors center, cafes and restaurants, and will host laboratories and collaborative spaces intended to foster innovation within Nvidia as well as with start-ups and other partners.
Israel is already the company’s largest and most important development center outside the United States, and Nvidia is one of the largest employers in the Israeli high‑tech sector. The planned campus — second in size only to the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters — is expected to accommodate more than 10,000 workers, roughly double Nvidia’s current workforce in Israel and about one‑third of its global workforce across 38 countries.
The site at the western edge of Kiryat Tivon, near Highway 6, the Emek Interchange and the Emek railway line, was selected following a competitive process in which dozens of local authorities in the country’s north, including Yokneam, Haifa, Migdal HaEmek, Afula, Harish and even Netanya, vied to host the project.
The Land Authority will allocate the land to Nvidia at a 51% discount, with its value estimated at tens of millions of shekels. Required approvals under Israeli law for the sale to a foreign company have already been granted by the ministries of defense and foreign affairs. Nvidia is expected initially to pay about NIS 90 million for part of the land, excluding value‑added tax and development costs.
Nvidia rose to prominence as a pioneer in artificial intelligence and a leader in supercomputing largely through the use of its graphics processing units, which are particularly suited to AI development because of their parallel computing capabilities.
Nvidia’s Israeli operations, which grew out of the 2019 acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, have primarily contributed technologies that enable exceptional interconnect speeds between processors in server farms. Since acquiring Mellanox, Nvidia has purchased three additional Israeli start‑ups. Its offices today are spread across Tel Hai, Yokneam, Ra’anana, Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva.
The company’s Israeli development center includes an AI research group led by Prof. Gal Chechik, working on advanced topics in generative AI, machine learning and natural language processing. Other teams focus on robotics and autonomous vehicle systems, software for self‑driving cars, cybersecurity and gaming optimization. In Yokneam, Nvidia also operates its first supercomputer in Israel, known as “Israel‑1.”
In addition to the planned campus, ynet's sister publication Calcalist reported Wednesday that Nvidia will soon build one of the largest data centers in Israel and the Middle East, covering some 30,000 square meters in the Mevo Carmel industrial zone near Yokneam. The facility will house a new, more advanced supercomputer than “Israel‑1” and is expected to be used exclusively for Nvidia’s own research and development, including large language model development and advanced AI projects.
The construction of both the campus and the data center is likely to turn the area into a major technology hub, attracting thousands of jobs and hundreds of new businesses, some directly as Nvidia employees and others as service providers to the new facilities.
Nvidia CEO: A strong Israel supporter
Nvidia CEO and chairman Jensen Huang — a Taiwan-born entrepreneur who immigrated to the United States at age nine — is widely regarded as a strong supporter of Israel and frequently praises and invests in the company’s Israeli operations.
“Israel is home to some of the world’s most brilliant technologists and has become NVIDIA’s second home,” Huang said. “Our new campus will be a place where our teams can collaborate, invent, and build the future of AI. This investment reflects our deep and enduring commitment to our families in Israel and their unique contributions to the AI era.”
Last week, Huang hosted Avinatan Or, an Israeli Nvidia employee who was released after 738 days in Hamas captivity, at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. Or visited alongside his partner, Noa Argamani, and was welcomed by the company’s Israeli leadership, who were visiting the U.S. at the time. Following Or’s return, Huang shared a heartfelt letter with Nvidia employees worldwide, in which he praised the courage of Or’s mother, Ditsa Or, and commended Nvidia Israel staff for their unwavering support of the family during the ordeal.
Amit Krig, senior vice president of software engineering at Nvidia and head of its Israeli development center, said Thursday following the announcement: “NVIDIA’s growth in Israel has been remarkable, driven by the extraordinary talent and engineering excellence of our teams. We’re grateful to Jensen and NVIDIA’s leadership for their trust and support in this next phase of growth, and to the Ministry of Treasury and the Israel Land Authority for their partnership. We look forward to bringing this vision to life and continuing to build the future of AI."
Ido Grinblum, head of the Kiryat Tivon local council, called the project “a transformative project for the council and for the entire northern region.” He added, “We are confident that NVIDIA’s choice of this region will prove to be the right one, and we thank the company for its trust.”