25 Jun Nvidia’s new investments in Israel
Israel is the 3rd largest generative artificial intelligence (AI) venture capital ecosystem in the world, only behind the USA and China, according to Israeli venture capital firm Viola.
The AI sector in Israel continues to inspire, despite the ongoing war, with the big news that Nvidia, the global leader in chip design for AI and supplier of Graphics Processing Units, acquired Israeli Run:ai for a reported $US700 million.
Run:ai was established by two Tel Aviv University Phd students, Omri Geller and Ronen Dar in 2018.
Run:ai sought to facilitate AI innovation by making it easier for data scientists to deploy, run and manage machine learning workloads.
The company developed a unique AI platform that can now be utilised from a single user interface in cloud, on premises or hybrid infrastructure environments. Its customers include global enterprises across all different industry sectors that are looking to utilise generative AI capabilities.
“Run:ai has been a close collaborator with Nvidia since 2020 and we share a passion for helping our customers make the most of their infrastructure,” said Omri Geller, Run:ai cofounder and CEO. “We’re thrilled to join Nvidia and look forward to continuing our journey together.”
By integrating Run:ai’s platform into its business, Nvidia aims to maintain its AI global leadership position.
Nvidia acquired another Israeli AI company Deci, one week later, for $US300 million. Deci optimises AI models to make them run more efficiently.
These are Nvidia’s third major acquisitions in Israel, having purchased Israeli Mellanox for $US6.9 billion, five years ago.
That purchase allowed Nvidia to offer scalable and accelerated computing and networking platform solutions to its customers. Nvidia now employs over 3,300 Israelis and is reaping the technological benefits in having multiple R&D centres throughout Israel.
In addition, Nvidia, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel to construct Israel-1, a state of the art AI supercomputer to drive AI innovation in Israel and globally.
It is one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world that enables faster AI model training and framework development.