For the primary time since Intel’s choice to construct a fab in Kiryat Gat some 20 years in the past, a brand new chip manufacturing facility is deliberate for development in Israel, in Ashkelon. The plan has been initiated by Yaron Ashkenazi’s Canadian defense-tech funding firm Awz, by which former IDF Chief of Employees Aviv Kohavi, former Israel Police chief Roni Alsheikh, and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper act as advisors.
That is an formidable plan, the entire funding by which might attain NIS 40 billion, for the institution of a posh that features R&D facilities, a silicon wafer manufacturing plant, and an meeting, testing, and packaging plant, which can cowl a complete space of 70,000 sq. meters within the Ashkelon industrial zone, and could have 350 staff together with 150 in R&D. The initiative is simply in its early phases, and in accordance with estimates, the fund is within the technique of elevating capital to buy the land
Awz, a veteran defense-tech fund that has to this point raised $500 million for enterprise capital investments, plans to develop the plant for dual-use functions – that’s, to designate the manufacturing of among the chips for the protection industries and the protection system in Israel – in order that the emphasis within the plant’s actions shall be mirrored in deep-tech applied sciences and photonic chips. Nonetheless, the chips will even be appropriate for industrial industries in Israel such because the automotive sector, communications, quantum computing and medical units. Based on the Awz announcement, the instant funding will attain NIS 5 billion, in cooperation with the Ministry of Financial system and Business, the Ashkelon Municipality, the Ministry of Finance, the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), and the Israel Innovation Authority.
Startups and educational institutes will be capable of entry the amenities
The plant plans to develop and produce chips which can be crucial for AI infrastructure, quantum computing, 5G and 6G communications, and quite a lot of strategic safety functions. Awz, “That is the primary personal plant of its type in Israel to supply chips primarily based on chemical compounds from the V-III household built-in on silicon and different substrates.” It added that the plant will function in a hybrid method, permitting for the merging and upgrading of manufacturing strains with different vegetation in Israel and overseas, and in an open format that will even permit startups and educational institutes to entry it.
RELATED ARTICLES
Former IDF chief joins Canadian VC fund AWZ
Awz founder and CEO Yaron Ashkenazi stated, “The chip plant would be the beating coronary heart of a brand new nationwide deep-tech heart that shall be established within the Tera Park industrial zone in Ashkelon, with a complete funding of NIS 5 billion of which NIS 3 billion shall be within the first section. It joins Awz’s earlier funding totaling greater than NIS 2 billion over the previous 8.5 years in Israeli startup firms growing groundbreaking deep-tech applied sciences with twin use – protection and industrial.”
The groundbreaking ceremony for the chip plant this morning in Ashkelon was additionally attended by Minister of Financial system and Business Nir Barkat, Minister of Financial system and Business director normal Moti Hagay, and Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam.
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on November 13, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.