44 Million Shekel Government Investment in AI Research Data Repositories

The Innovation Authority, Ministry of Economy and Industry through the Growth Administration, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and the Resilience Administration have announced a new call for proposals. Grants totaling up to 44 million shekels will be awarded for the development, opening, and accessibility of quality data repositories for researchers, technology companies, and industrial bodies operating in Israel.

The initiative is part of the second phase of the national program for artificial intelligence and represents a milestone in Israel's ability to position itself as a global power in the field of artificial intelligence. This investment stems from the understanding that quality, accessible, sorted, and updated data is a critical infrastructure for promoting innovative developments, developing advanced algorithms, predicting industrial processes, accelerating scientific research and development, and even promoting solutions to climate, medical, and security challenges.

The purpose of the call for proposals is to create a national data infrastructure specializing in various fields, a groundbreaking infrastructure that will support the extraction of insights, training of artificial intelligence models, development of products, services, and new technologies. The data repositories that will be allocated under this framework can include data accumulated over the years in the public or private sector, alongside new data that will be collected in an initiated manner.

This is an opportunity to connect raw knowledge - to analyzed, organized, secure, and accessible data. The partnership between the government bodies expresses a strategic understanding: in the era of artificial intelligence, data is a vital resource for groundbreaking research and development.

Six national growth engines will benefit from a data infrastructure, with an emphasis on data and information repositories that are not currently available in the Israeli ecosystem:

Life Sciences and Health - Medical, genomic, or clinical information that will enable the development of drugs, medical equipment, diagnostic technologies, and artificial intelligence tools tailored to the health system.

Advanced Manufacturing - Data from advanced industries, production lines, supply chains, sensing and automation systems, including semiconductors and ICT.

Desert Tech and Climate - Climate data repositories, renewable energy data, water monitoring, weather forecasting, environmental sensing, and applications for climate sectors.

Agrotech - Agricultural data based on sensors, satellite escort, GIS systems, water agriculture, packaging houses, and the food supply chain.

Foodtech - Research and technology repositories in innovative food, including alternative protein, meat substitutes from the living, new manufacturing processes, and nutritional monitoring.

Security and High-tech - Data relevant to cyber, security technologies, and dual-use, space industries, and the security AI, alongside blockchain, fintech, smart transportation, and software.

The process is being formulated in close cooperation between four central bodies in light of the vision that data repositories have an advantage in size and cooperation, and it is designed to enable the growth of new entrepreneurs, young researchers, and start-up companies.

One of the main areas in which the initiative will be implemented is the field of agrotech, where data repositories will focus on soil data, climate, types of crops, pests, cultivation protocols, agricultural technologies, and marketing and distribution data, with an emphasis on real-time agricultural data collection and addressing the global climate crisis and global warming. This is information that until now has been scattered among various bodies in a way that was not always accessible for research purposes. Making the information accessible will significantly assist technological developments based on data in the field of agriculture.

Dror Bin, CEO of the Innovation Authority: 'Data is the raw material for training artificial intelligence models that create breakthrough solutions in many fields - in food, transportation, health, security, and industry. This call for proposals is designed to turn Israel's data repositories from closed resources into open engines of innovation. Broad accessibility of quality data will yield rapid developments and strengthen Israel's position as a global AI power.'

Moti Gamish, CEO of the Ministry of Economy and Industry: 'As part of the ministry's ongoing engagement in strengthening the growth engines of the Israeli economy, we understood that data is the new oil. To enable Israeli companies to develop groundbreaking products and compete in international markets in the era of artificial intelligence, we must make quality data infrastructure accessible to companies. This is the effort we are proud to launch together with other government ministries and will accelerate the development of such infrastructure for companies.'