AI a ‘game-changer’ for future of warfare, says Defense Ministry director-general
In first year of war, 86 startups focusing on innovative tech took in orders worth $168 million from government body, five times more than previous year’s total, data shows
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel.
Over the next decade, AI robots in land, air and sea will lead the modern warfare battlefield, predicted Defense Ministry director-general Eyal Zamir, speaking Tuesday at the first international defense tech summit.
In his opening remarks at the summit held at Tel Aviv University, Zamir said those armies that will adapt AI capabilities first will have a massive advantage, and that countries that will not invest in the implementation of the revolutionary technology will fall behind.
“AI isn’t just another innovation, it is a complete game-changer,” said Zamir. “The future battlefield will allow swarms of mixed combat units, men and unmanned systems fighting together or fully autonomous units operating as one, capable of making their own decisions.”
“In the next ten to fifteen years, maybe sooner, AI robots in land, air and sea will dominate a fully networked battlefield,” he added.
Zamir emphasized that Israel needs to “embed these new abilities to be more efficient and save lives.”
The defense tech summit, led by the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense, Research & Development, or MAFAT in Hebrew, and the Tel Aviv University’s Blavatnik Cyber Research Center brought together 1,000 attendees including senior officials, senior executives of tech giants Elbit, Nvidia and Microsoft, as well as academia, startups and venture capital funds.
According to experts, one of the major lessons learned from current conflicts around the world — whether it is the war in Ukraine or Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group — is that armies, including the IDF, were not adequately prepared for full asymmetric war and need to integrate new sensors, drones and software applications into their military systems.
Despite having one of the world’s best defense technologies against missiles and rockets, Israel has struggled to deal with the drone threat throughout the current war. It was Hamas drones that first crossed from Gaza into Israel on the morning of October 7, 2023, to disable electronic monitoring systems and pave the way for the massive cross-border onslaught in which terrorists brutally killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 to the Gaza Strip.
“Air and missile defense is changing the world. Arrow 3 was operated for the first time against a missile launched from Yemen at a distance of more than 1,500 km,” said Brig. Gen. (Res.) Daniel Gold, head of MAFAT. “We are continuously improving our air and missile defense systems; during the war alone, we implemented dozens of system improvements.”
Gold, the driving force behind the Iron Dome missile defense system, said that during the war, the IDF worked with “dozens of startups in the field.”
“We created a methodology for integrating a startup in the field, something the world is still trying to figure out.”
Data presented at the conference showed that especially post-October 7, 2023 onslaught, there has been some progress in the defense establishment’s efforts to work with local startups for the development of innovative modern warfare systems and secure the country’s long-term security.
Since the outbreak of war with Hamas in October last year and September 2024, the Israeli army collaborated with 86 Israeli startups and small companies amounting to about $168 million in contracts — five times more than during the same period last year, according to MAFAT data. These join about 200 other startups working with the body to develop various innovative technologies and capabilities.
Speaking to The Times of Israel at the summit, Defense Ministry Head of Planning, Economics & IT Department Col. Nir Weingold said that in the 430 days of war startups and medium-sized enterprises funded by the defense establishment have attracted NIS 1 billion ($280 million) in investments for orders. That compares to NIS 100 million that was allocated for orders from about 200 startups in the first nine months of 2023, he added.
The speakers at the summit emphasized that deepening cooperation between MAFAT and Israeli startups increases the country’s local manufacturing independence and strengthens the Israeli economy.
Zamir disclosed that as part of MAFAT — the body charged with sourcing, supporting and scaling defense innovation projects into battlefield use — a new directorate will be created that will be equipped with a task force to focus on AI and autonomy systems, including robotics, for military use in current and future systems.
“We see these trends in the US mainly deploying AI whether it is for connectivity, robotics, or large language models used for intelligence and other missions,” said Weingold. “We will bring artificial intelligence to the edge and bring these capabilities to the battlefield.”
“We see defense tech as a growth engine, similar to how we developed into a startup or cyber nation we will be the defense tech nation,” he added.
