Kiryat Tivon is moving closer to winning the race for Nvidia’s new development center, as the state has decided to allocate land for the project without a tender. The decision was made Wednesday at a meeting of the Israel Land Authority’s management, attended by the director general of the Planning Administration, the director general of the Transportation Ministry, the chair of the Haifa District Planning Committee, and Nvidia representatives.
The decision still requires approval by the Land Council and will be distributed for ratification on Thursday. Nvidia said in response that “the company continues to examine all alternatives.”
According to the plan, the project is expected to be “unique in its scale and design, unlike anything seen before in Israel, similar to the company’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California.” The building, which will span roughly 160,000 square meters, will house about 8,000 employees. Beyond those directly employed at the new campus, the project is expected to have a significant economic impact across northern Israel.
The development agreement will include several special conditions, including one setting a seven-year development period due to the project’s size. If additional time is needed to complete construction, Nvidia will be able to request an extension of up to three more years, free of charge, provided it meets the other terms of the agreement. This condition accounts for the project’s iconic design and the need for coordination with the company’s global teams.
Another clause allows Nvidia to cancel the agreement if the requested zoning plan is not approved. In that case, the company would return the land to the Israel Land Authority free of any encumbrances, and the authority would refund Nvidia the amount paid for the property, minus usage fees for the period it held the land.
The site is expected to be located in the Kiryat Tivon Employment Campus, on the western edge of the town, near Highway 6, the HaEmek Interchange, and the Jezreel Valley railway line. The 90-dunam (22-acre) plan includes areas for offices, commerce, leisure and tourism, as well as public spaces and roads. It also provides 12,000 square meters of commercial and office space in 7- to 10-story buildings, with a nearby public transportation terminal serving the region from several directions.
According to the Israel Land Authority, Nvidia has indicated it needs a larger plot than what is currently approved and will not sign an agreement unless the land is expanded. Therefore, the authority recommends granting the company additional space under a planning license agreement.
The decision marks a major win for Kiryat Tivon. Dozens of municipalities courted Nvidia with generous incentives to host the new campus. Among the main contenders were Yokneam, where Nvidia already has offices; Haifa, which offered space in its science and technology park near the Matam complex; and other cities including Migdal HaEmek, Afula, Harish and even Netanya.
Nvidia’s Israeli development center is already the company’s second-largest outside the United States, employing more than 5,000 people and ranking among the largest high-tech employers in the country. The new construction plans indicate Nvidia’s intention to double or even triple its Israeli workforce in the coming years.
Globally, Nvidia, founded as a graphics computing company for gaming, is now valued at roughly $4.7 trillion. It employs more than 36,000 engineers, researchers, scientists, and developers across 38 countries. The company became a leader in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing largely thanks to its powerful graphic processing units (GPUs), which are ideally suited for parallel computing. Today, those GPUs power data centers for researchers, developers, startups, and organizations, placing Nvidia at the forefront of the generative AI revolution.