The National Initiative for Secured Intelligent Systems
Israel · Strategy · Prime Minister's Office of Israel; coordinated by the National Security Council
Our summary
A strategic national plan prepared for Israel's government recommending how to develop artificial intelligence and related technologies as critical infrastructure for national security, economic growth, and technological resilience. The initiative targets placing Israel among the world's top five countries in core areas of AI within five years, and proposes specific goals including establishing a dedicated national administration, budgeting 10 billion Israeli new shekels for 2021-2025, and developing AI applications across healthcare, transportation, agriculture, and government services.
Written by the Index in our own words. It is not legal advice; the official text is the authority.
Inside this policy
Every section of this policy in order. Our notes summarise each one in plain language and do not quote the official text, which is the authority.
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33 sections
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- The Situation in the Rest of the World
- 1 Strengths
- 2 Weaknesses and Challenges
- 1 Ensuring Technological Resilience
- 2 Ensuring Techno-Security Strength
- 3 Opportunity for Economic Growth
- 4 Opportunity to Improve the Well-Being of Society
- 1 National Priority
- 2 National Plan
- 3 Budgeting the Plan
- 4 Directing the Plan
- 5 Advisory Committee
- 1 Infrastructures
- 2 Enabling Conditions
- 3 Capacity Building and Flagship Projects
- 1 Health
- 2 Agriculture
- 3 Transportation
- 4 Security
- 5 The Government Digitization Project
- Appendix A The Definition of Intelligent Systems
- Appendix B Future Global AI Market Value Estimates
- Appendix C State Strategies and Investments in AI around the World
The Situation in the Rest of the World
Over 30 countries have published national strategies and invested billions in artificial intelligence since 2017, viewing it as foundational technology affecting all areas of life, with major powers including Russia, China, and the United States launching significant government-funded initiatives and investment programs to establish leadership in the field. The global AI market was valued at 1.9 trillion USD in 2019 and is forecast to reach approximately 3.9 trillion USD by 2022, with estimates showing annual market growth of 600-800 billion USD over the next five years. European countries and the EU have also launched substantial investment programs and collaborative initiatives in artificial intelligence.
1 Strengths
Israel possesses significant advantages in artificial intelligence, including a high concentration of startup companies ranking second only to the US and comparable to China despite much smaller population and resources. Recent intensified efforts across business, academia, and government sectors demonstrate growing commitment and provide a strong foundation for continued development.
2 Weaknesses and Challenges
Israel's small size, limited resources, insufficient human capital in specialized areas, and prohibitive infrastructure costs constrain its capacity to compete globally in artificial intelligence, while a digital divide within Israel between sectors compared to developed Western countries requires bridging before intelligent systems can be effectively integrated. Israel must centralize fragmented efforts into an integrated national plan across government, sectors, and infrastructure to achieve critical mass in artificial intelligence, create a sustainable ecosystem, and ensure Israel's security, economy, and citizen well-being through developing public services, increasing productivity, and enabling market-competitive solutions.
1 Ensuring Technological Resilience
Maintaining Israeli leadership in intelligent systems requires investment in the high-tech industry and innovation to protect the economy and national security that depend on technological advantage. This demands academic reform suited to intelligent systems research, and efforts to retain Israeli researchers and experts while reversing brain drain.
2 Ensuring Techno-Security Strength
Israel must develop and deploy secure intelligent systems and autonomous tools to meet unique security requirements and maintain technological advantage in the information age, where power depends on data collection and processing capabilities. Without substantial investment in artificial intelligence capabilities over the next two decades, Israel risks losing accumulated advantages and suffering security consequences.
3 Opportunity for Economic Growth
Capturing even 1% of global artificial intelligence market growth would create substantial economic value for Israel, and achieving 5% share could generate 30 to 40 billion dollars annually. Israel's track record of controlling approximately 10% of global weapons and cyber systems markets demonstrates its potential in advanced technology sectors.
4 Opportunity to Improve the Well-Being of Society
1 section
Strategic investment in artificial intelligence and integration into the economy can enhance public services and transform sectors including medicine, transportation, and agriculture, increasing productivity and citizen well-being. This technology presents an opportunity to promote growth and efficiency even in traditional industries new to Israeli innovation.
The Central Idea
The initiative seeks to transform Israel's small size from a disadvantage into an advantage by enabling rapid, coherent program implementation with ecosystem collaboration and participation. Israel requires a national strategy and investment in infrastructure, human capital, data accessibility, research and development, cybersecurity, ethical and regulatory frameworks, and cross-sector incentives to address challenges, reduce gaps with leading players, and secure its position in global artificial intelligence competition.
1 National Priority
Designates intelligent systems and artificial intelligence as vital for national security, economic development, and citizen welfare, framing them as foundational infrastructure underpinning all technological leadership. Establishes the rationale for state investment and international collaboration to secure Israel's position as a global leader in the field.
2 National Plan
Calls for developing a comprehensive strategy to build a sustainable ecosystem spanning government, security, industry, and academia around intelligent systems. The plan comprises three interconnected elements: essential infrastructures including computing, talent, data, and research; enabling conditions such as cybersecurity and supportive regulatory frameworks; and cross-sector capacity building through national projects in health, transport, security, and agriculture.
3 Budgeting the Plan
Requires the Israeli government to commit NIS 10 billion over 2021-2025, with NIS 1 billion annually redirected from existing civilian research and development budgets and an additional NIS 1 billion annually allocated newly. These funds support foundational infrastructure and ecosystem development to catalyze greater private-sector investment in intelligent systems.
4 Directing the Plan
Creating a new National Administration for Intelligent Systems reporting to the Prime Minister's Office is proposed to implement and lead a national program on artificial intelligence, manage budget, formulate integrated policy recommendations, coordinate international partnerships, and recruit professionals primarily from artificial intelligence and techno-strategic fields with dedicated compensation structures. Relying on existing government entities would be insufficient and dispersed, hindering achievement of making Israel a world leader in intelligent systems, and establishing an independent governmental body overseeing the plan is necessary to make further spending effective; the strategy recommends using a governance model similar to Singapore's.
5 Advisory Committee
Creates a five-member independent advisory body reporting to the Prime Minister to monitor implementation progress, identify emerging challenges, and alert leadership to significant delays or obstacles. This external oversight complements the dedicated administration and helps navigate government resistance and competing interests.
1 Infrastructures
4 sections
Introduces the first component of the national plan, covering four foundational areas: computing systems, skilled workforce development, research capacity, and data resources required for intelligent systems advancement.
A. Computing Infrastructures
Israel should establish a shared cloud infrastructure for civilian government and defense entities with compartmentalized security, potentially partnering with international companies like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google, to provide services to government-funded research, and create a High-Performance Computing center with a supercomputer and training laboratory for civilian and military needs, enabling industry and academic problem-solving, workforce training, and technology development. This infrastructure should include quantum computing interfaces integrated with the supercomputing system, located in Israel to build human and technological expertise, ensure emergency availability during crises, maintain independence and research flexibility without foreign reliance, protect sensitive data, and avoid boycotts or provider hostage situations. A 2019 study ranked Israel 12th among 54 countries in artificial intelligence capabilities, with critical weaknesses in infrastructure ranking 36th, operating environment ranking 50th, and government strategy ranking 46th; these deficiencies can be addressed within a relatively short period with sustained annual investment to maintain improvements.
B. Human Capital Infrastructures
Israel should establish data literacy as a core subject across all education levels from elementary school through higher education, with compulsory courses in data literacy, data analysis, and artificial intelligence tools for all students, advanced data science and machine learning courses for engineering and science students, and basic data knowledge assessment in higher education entrance examinations, while providing training to teachers with industry support and lifelong learning in artificial intelligence applications for working adults. Specialized artificial intelligence degree programs and graduate programs should be established, with fully-funded multi-year training abroad for Israeli experts before domestic frameworks are ready, and academic staff in artificial intelligence fields should be permitted to hold simultaneous positions in industry while reducing teaching responsibilities, with university technology transfer policies allowing professors to retain up to 80 percent of intellectual property rights if establishing a company without university funds. These measures are necessary to expand advanced artificial intelligence training, prevent talent migration to industry, and preserve research capacity in artificial intelligence.
C. Research infrastructures
Israel should establish four to six university-based artificial intelligence research centers that collaborate with colleges, each leveraging the distinctive strengths of different institutions. These centers will serve as scientific infrastructure for developing technological leadership and training practitioners from undergraduate students to leading researchers across academia and industry.
D. Data Infrastructures
Calls for making government-held national data accessible to public, private and security entities in Israel and abroad as essential for advancing intelligent systems development and economic growth. Proposes combining regulatory and technological approaches, including using homomorphic encryption, to enable information sharing while entities retain possession of their own data and maintain permission-based access controls, with some designated data open to all citizens. Recommends exploring homomorphic encryption to process encrypted data from multiple sources without decryption or data concentration, enabling secure collaboration between data owners and users while protecting intellectual property and maintaining compartmentalization of sensitive databases, with both parties retaining control over data use.
2 Enabling Conditions
2 sections
A. Cyber Security and Artificial Intelligence
Israel must ensure that all systems incorporating intelligent technologies maintain robust security protections. The National Cyber Directorate should develop and implement an updated cybersecurity methodology adapted to intelligent systems, leveraging Israel's existing expertise to establish itself as a global leader in securing such systems.
B. Ethics and Regulation
Advocates adopting guiding ethical principles for intelligent systems development including fairness, accountability, human rights protection, cyber and information security, safety, and competitive markets, with regulation adapted to risk levels but applied minimally to enable innovation while maintaining appropriate ethical and regulatory rules. Calls for promoting self-regulation through risk assessment tools to identify ethical challenges during development stages, incorporating ethical constraints and forbidden behaviors into intelligent systems algorithms, participating in international norm-setting forums, and training personnel involved in artificial intelligence on ethical rules.
3 Capacity Building and Flagship Projects
3 sections
A. Empowering the Industrial Sector and Strengthening Industry-Academic Relations
Recommends creating a simplified pathway for AI developers to commercialize research through universities, allowing researchers to retain 80% of rights and royalties while 20% goes to universities, and exempting industry-university engagements from university regulations for five years. Also calls for increasing research and development budgets of the Innovation Authority to support intelligent systems development.
B. The Government Sector
The government should integrate intelligent technologies in ministries to improve efficiency and reduce costs, with digital communication replacing physical or phone contact where possible, contingent upon completing digitization of government services on a binding schedule to eliminate the digital divide, and to close the productivity gap between Israel and comparable OECD countries. Investment in artificial intelligence should accelerate productivity growth through deployments of intelligent systems into citizen services, including identity verification, natural language conversation systems, and document retrieval using algorithms. Government ministries should be permitted to form ad hoc teams including industry and academic experts to develop technological solutions to complex challenges.
C. National Capacity Building (Flagship Projects)
Identifies four priority sectors for large-scale intelligent systems deployment where Israel has competitive advantages: health, agriculture, transportation, and security. These sectors should serve as platforms for building entire innovation ecosystems that bind industry, academia, government and economic sectors into unified systems for sustainable growth.
1 Health
Israel should lead healthcare innovation through intelligent technologies for remote patient management, emergency department efficiency, and clinical outcome evaluation by removing information-sharing barriers, adopting European CE or American FDA regulatory standards, and supporting secure data sharing via tools such as homomorphic encryption. Collaboration between healthcare organizations, research institutions, and hospitals should be encouraged. Training should develop AI expertise among medical professionals and information scientists through enrichment courses for all medical students, in-depth training of approximately 15% of students with appropriate backgrounds (including scholarships of NIS 10,000-12,000 with public service commitments), and post-doctoral physician training at leading foreign institutions for ten selected young physicians.
2 Agriculture
Recommends developing intelligent systems for early detection of pests and diseases in crops, and integrating intelligent systems across agriculture to optimize use of natural resources and inputs for food production. The initiative will reduce food loss and environmental harm while positioning Israel as a global leader and knowledge exporter in agricultural artificial intelligence.
3 Transportation
The strategy recommends deploying unified artificial intelligence across traffic signals in a pilot metropolitan area to enable dynamic real-time adjustments and improve traffic flow. This flagship project aims to reduce congestion, improve economic productivity, decrease accidents and casualties, and lower air pollution. Following implementation of intelligent traffic lights, recommends establishing metropolitan traffic centers to coordinate transportation issues that cross city boundaries and require coordination at the metropolitan level.
4 Security
The section requires strategic planning and significant state investment to develop artificial intelligence capabilities for defense forces, including intelligence superiority, operational intelligence, autonomy and swarms, with shared computing infrastructure between defense and civilian sectors and appropriate security compartmentalization. It calls for expanding skilled personnel in artificial intelligence within the defense forces, including soldier-students in data science, programmers, data analysts, and taggers, as well as increased staff in the computer professions school. It also proposes a national project for a unified command and control system for smart and secure state management in routine and emergency periods, with monitoring and analysis of data from all relevant entities to enable preparedness and optimal decision-making.
5 The Government Digitization Project
Designates digital transformation of government services as a flagship project and prerequisite for integrating intelligent systems, because Israel currently lags significantly in this sector. The initiative recommends completing the transition to basic government service digitization through a binding schedule.
Appendix A The Definition of Intelligent Systems
Intelligent systems combine advances in artificial intelligence, particularly deep learning, with minimized computing and communication capabilities, using supervised learning from tagged data, unsupervised learning from untagged data, and deep learning through artificial neural networks to perform tasks requiring human-level intelligence. These systems enable autonomous devices that sense, analyze, decide and act independently while interacting with humans and other systems, supported by the Internet of Things with billions of interconnected devices, distributed intelligence emerging from network interactions through technologies like blockchain, and quantum information science encompassing quantum sensing, quantum communication and quantum computing. Understanding intelligent systems requires mastery of technological disciplines alongside social, legal, business and philosophical aspects, as they represent a new era where advanced computing infrastructures will integrate into all life areas including economy, health, education and security.
Appendix B Future Global AI Market Value Estimates
Multiple sources forecast significant global AI market growth: McKinsey estimates potential annual value at 3.5 to 5.8 trillion USD, Gartner projects business value of 1.2 trillion USD in 2018 growing to 3.9 trillion USD by 2022 with the AI software market reaching 118.6 billion USD by 2025, and IDC predicts 77.6 billion USD in worldwide spending on cognitive and AI systems by 2022. Accenture research indicates that artificial intelligence could increase average profitability rates by 38 percent across 16 industries by 2035, generating 14 trillion USD in economic growth across 12 developed economies, contingent on organizations embracing a people-first approach and taking responsible steps to deploy AI technologies.
Appendix C State Strategies and Investments in AI around the World
Controls
What this policy requires, forbids, grants or penalises, one control at a time and in our own words. Each control links to the official text, which is the authority. This is not legal advice.
Drafted by the Index Drafted automatically from the official text, not yet reviewed by a person.Reviewed Checked by a person against the official text.
Themes covered 16 of 35
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Risk and scope 2 of 4
- Risk classification, not covered
- Impact assessment, not covered
Data and privacy 2 of 4
- Data subject rights and consent, not covered
- Cross-border data transfer, not covered
Transparency and records 2 of 4
- Labelling of synthetic content, not covered
- Technical documentation, not covered
Technical safeguards 2 of 4
- Human oversight, not covered
- Testing and evaluation, not covered
Assurance and lifecycle 0 of 4
- Conformity assessment and certification, not covered
- Registration and notification, not covered
- Incident and breach reporting, not covered
- Post-market monitoring and corrective action, not covered
Rights and protected groups 1 of 4
- Automated decision-making rights, not covered
- Biometric identification and surveillance, not covered
- Whistleblowing, complaints and redress, not covered
Roles and organisation 6 of 6
Enforcement and sectors 1 of 5
- Enforcement, penalties and regulators, not covered
- Sector rules: finance and insurance, not covered
- Sector rules: employment, not covered
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1 8 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority should invest in Israeli leadership in intelligent systems to preserve the high-tech industry's relevance and national security, reform academic models to suit intelligent systems research, and combat brain drain by retaining and attracting Israeli researchers and experts.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The state should declare intelligent systems and artificial intelligence as critical infrastructure and a national priority for security, economy and citizen welfare.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The state should build infrastructure and establish conditions that enable and encourage leadership in artificial intelligence across all sectors.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The state should develop foreign relations and international collaborations to help Israel establish global leadership in artificial intelligence through academia, trade and foreign aid.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should lead a healthcare transformation by implementing intelligent technologies for remote patient management, emergency department efficiency, and clinical outcome measurement.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Barriers to health data sharing, including privacy and regulatory obstacles, should be urgently removed to enable collaboration between healthcare organizations, HMOs, research bodies and hospitals.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should adopt European or American regulatory standards to facilitate the use of intelligent systems in healthcare.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Specialized training in medical artificial intelligence should be developed to cultivate a qualified workforce of doctors, healthcare professionals, and information scientists across research and clinical practice.
2 7 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should develop and deploy secure intelligent systems and autonomous tools to meet security requirements and maintain technological advantage in data collection and processing capabilities.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The government should develop a comprehensive national strategy to establish a sustainable ecosystem for intelligent systems by coordinating efforts across government, security, industry, and academia.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The national plan should include investment in computing infrastructure, human capital development, data access, and research capabilities for intelligent systems.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The national plan should establish cybersecurity measures tailored to the era of intelligent systems and an ethical and regulatory framework that supports innovation.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The government should launch national projects in health, transport, security, and agriculture to build cross-sector capacity and demonstrate the value of intelligent systems.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Governments should promote national projects to develop intelligent systems for early detection of agricultural pests and diseases.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Governments should integrate intelligent systems in agriculture to optimize natural resource and input usage for food production.
3 4 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority shall allocate approximately NIS 1 billion annually from the existing civilian research and development budget for intelligent systems between 2021 and 2025.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority shall allocate an additional NIS 1 billion annually for the national intelligent systems effort to be managed by a dedicated administration between 2021 and 2025.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Existing civilian research and development budget entities should manage redirected intelligent systems funding according to their share of the budget with consent and coordination of the new administration.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Governments should install intelligent traffic light systems across a pilot metropolitan area to address traffic congestion through unified real-time artificial intelligence coordination.
4 8 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority shall establish a dedicated National Administration for Intelligent Systems within the Prime Minister's Office to implement and lead the national plan.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The National Administration for Intelligent Systems should manage the additional budget allocated for the plan and provide policy recommendations to the government on integrated intelligent systems policy.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The National Administration for Intelligent Systems should establish and lead Israel's international partnerships and connections in intelligent systems and artificial intelligence.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The National Administration for Intelligent Systems staff should be predominantly composed of personnel from artificial intelligence and technology sectors with competitive compensation.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority should develop a strategic plan and invest substantially in artificial intelligence to advance national defense operations, intelligence capabilities, autonomy, and efficiency.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority should strengthen collaboration between defense, industry, and academia to develop a shared security-civilian ecosystem for intelligent systems supporting routine and emergency state management.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority should train skilled personnel in artificial intelligence to support national defense and security objectives.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority should establish a common system to monitor, collect, and analyze data from relevant state entities for routine preparedness and emergency response decision-making.
5 2 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority shall establish a five-member independent advisory committee to monitor implementation of the plan, identify emerging challenges, and alert the Prime Minister to significant delays.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
The public authority should urgently complete the transition to basic digitization of government services using a binding schedule as a prerequisite for integrating intelligent systems.
A. Computing Infrastructures 3 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should establish a domestic cloud platform and a high-performance computing center with supercomputers and research laboratories to ensure technological independence and emergency capability.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Civilian and defense computing infrastructure should maintain separation between civilian and security systems for compartmentalization purposes.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Quantum computing interfaces should be developed as part of national computing infrastructure.
B. Human Capital Infrastructures 3 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should make data literacy widely accessible to all citizens through a continuous educational pathway from primary school through university and into the workforce.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Advanced training programs and degrees in artificial intelligence fields should be promoted and developed.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Academic employment models should be reformed to allow artificial intelligence lecturers and researchers to work in industry while reducing their academic duties.
C. Research infrastructures 2 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should establish four to six university-based research centers for artificial intelligence that work together and leverage each institution's distinct strengths.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
University research centers should be structured in partnership with colleges and concentrate on topics requiring sustained academic investigation to build technological leadership.
D. Data Infrastructures 3 controls
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Israel should establish a national infrastructure enabling access to government data across private, security and governmental entities through regulatory and technological approaches.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Bureaucratic barriers should be overcome to make scattered government data accessible to research institutions and industry.
- ObligationApplies to: Public authorityDrafted by the Index
Data management infrastructure should use regulatory and technological tools, including encryption methods, to enable secure sharing of information with private, security and governmental entities in Israel and abroad.
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