Nebius to build Israel’s AI supercomputer
Half a billion shekels will fund one of the world’s most advanced AI research infrastructures.
Israel has taken a dramatic leap into the global artificial intelligence race with the announcement of a half-billion-shekel investment in a national supercomputer, to be built and operated by the multinational company Nebius. The project represents the conclusion of an extensive planning process and will involve an investment exceeding NIS 500 million ($140M), including NIS 160 million ($45M) in government support. It marks the start of Phase II in the country’s National AI Program and signals a deliberate effort to catch up—and potentially lead—in an increasingly competitive global arena.
The supercomputer will offer Israeli startups, researchers, and public institutions access to cutting-edge compute power at discounted rates, with the first operational phase slated for early 2026. The process began with a preliminary tender involving the winners of the Nimbus tender, Google and Amazon — both of which later withdrew.
Nebius was founded by Arkady Volozh, the former founder and CEO of Yandex. The company has a significant R&D center in Israel, and Volozh, who received Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return in 2017, has been living in Israel in recent years.
Trading in Nasdaq-listed Yandex was suspended soon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nebius later revived the listing as part of the asset split.
In a conversation with Calcalist, Dror Bin, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority, said: “We had four very strong bids that exceeded the minimum requirements, and Nebius’ proposal was the best — with proven experience building similar supercomputers. Nebius is a multinational company with comparable systems in other countries and is one of the leading providers of cloud-based GPU rental.”
He added: “Nebius is owned by Arkady Volozh, founder of Yandex, who has since left Russia. There is no connection between Nebius — which is registered in the Netherlands — and the Russian Yandex that Volozh previously owned. We conducted a thorough review of the company to ensure it has no ties to Yandex. We expect the computer to be operational by late 2025 or early 2026. It will feature advanced NVIDIA Blackwell chips, with the option for future upgrades.”
The aim of the initiative is to increase the availability of computational power for training AI models for researchers and companies in Israel, while significantly reducing the cost of access to such resources.
The program introduces a globally unique model of public-private cooperation by channeling government funding to support R&D during the earlier, riskier stages for companies using the infrastructure.
Nebius Group is a multinational company with five operating centers around the world and an Israeli management team. The solution it proposed includes processing power four times greater than the minimum requirement set in the tender.
The company has committed to building a computing infrastructure in Israel with a capacity of approximately 16,000 petaflops. In addition, it has pledged to offer discounted computing power at twice the required volume, and to complete construction and begin providing services by early 2026.
