Israel proposes Kiryat Tivon for Nvidia’s multibillion-dollar tech campus in north

Israel is attempting to draw US chip giant Nvidia into building its massive multibillion-dollar tech campus in Kiryat Tivon, which is expected to generate thousands of jobs for the town and help develop the region in Israel’s north.

Nvidia’s expansion plan, first announced in July, has prompted the Israel Land Authority, on its own initiative, to propose numerous potential plots that would be suitable for building the new R&D campus, with preference given to proximity to the chipmaker’s Israel headquarters in Yokne’am in the north of the country.

Speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Israel Land Authority CEO Yaakov Kvint said the authority offered Nvidia a 90-dunam (22-acre) plot of land in Kiryat Tivon, after proposing 15 to 20 alternative site locations across northern Israel over the past four months. If Nvidia decides to build the R&D center in Kiryat Tivon, the allocated land will be exempt from a tender process, the ILA said.

“To Nvidia’s credit, they did not apply for land allocation exempt from a tender or ask for benefits,” said Kvint. “For Nvidia to establish its campus in Kiryat Tivon is a blessing for the north and the country.”

“By the beginning of December, the deal will be approved,” Kvint said.

Kiryat Tivon is a town near Haifa with an upper-middle class community of less than 20,000 residents. A Nvidia spokesman said in response that the Silicon Valley chipmaker “continues to evaluate all other alternatives,” as it scouts for land parcels.

Israel views the establishment of Nvidia’s R&D center in Kiryat Tivon as a catalyst for the geographical distribution of high-tech jobs and an engine of growth in a region that suffers from a chronic lack of quality employment opportunities.

The planned campus is expected to span about 160,000 square meters and provide jobs for over 8,000 people. The R&D hub is touted as a springboard for Israel to remain at the forefront of innovation and technology, especially in the artificial intelligence space.

“Nvidia is on a path to becoming a major employer and a significant growth engine in the north,” said Housing Minister Haim Katz. “This is a project that will further solidify Israel’s position as a global high-tech powerhouse and will contribute significantly to regional development and the creation of thousands of quality jobs that will strengthen the Israeli economy.”

The Kiryat Tivon local council said it “still awaits final decisions by Nvidia on the issue.”

“Kiryat Tivon is a community that combines natural spaces with urbanity, and has significant potential for the development of tourism, hotels, community, society, and education,” the Kiryat Tivon municipal council wrote in an emailed statement. “We encourage entrepreneurship and provide broad backing for development and renewal in the community.”

Back in July, Nvidia issued a so-called request for information (RFI) tender to locate a plot of land spanning 70 to 120 dunams (30 acres) with construction rights to build a campus of 80,000–180,000 square meters. At the time, the computing juggernaut stated that it was interested in acquiring land with “high accessibility to main traffic arteries and public transportation” in the Zichron Yaakov, Haifa and Jezreel Valley areas.

Nvidia’s R&D activities in Israel are already the firm’s largest outside of the US. The chip maker employs over 5,000 workers in Israel in seven R&D centers, from Yokne’am, the headquarters of Mellanox, which was acquired by Nvidia in 2020, to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ra’anana and Beersheba in the south.

Many of Nvidia’s high-end processors and networking chips, essential for training the largest AI models, are developed at its R&D centers in Israel. As global tech firms including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla race to build AI data centers and dominate the emerging technology, demand for Nvidia’s most advanced processors is surging.

The appetite for Nvidia’s chips has been driving the company’s stock price rapidly since early 2023, turning it into the world’s first $5 trillion company at the end of October.