After the failure of talks with Google and Amazon to build Israel’s supercomputer, and the re-issuing of the tender by the Israel Innovation Authority, “Globes” has learned that tech giant Oracle plans to bid for the tender. Oracle already operates Israel’s biggest data center for local cloud operation, which it leases from Binat in Jerusalem’s Har Hotzvim technology park.
The Innovation Authority has been trying for several years to build a supercomputer in Israel that would allow academia and tech companies to undertake exceptional AI calculations and simulations that cannot be performed on regular computing servers. Most recently, it tried to persuade Google and Amazon, the winners of the Israeli government’s Nimbus cloud tender, to build the supercomputer with a budget of up to NIS 290 million, including a NIS 160 million grant. “Globes” reported earlier this week that Google did not bid in the tender due to a lack of economic viability, while Amazon did bid but did not proceed to the final stages of the tender for various reasons.
A senior figure in the computing industry told “Globes” on condition of anonymity that “The tender was defined in detail: the number of processors needed and their type, which does not allow flexibility for the cloud providers to plan how to solve the need that the supercomputer is supposed to provide, and it also did not define the manner in which the processors will be upgraded as technology advances. There would be no point in building a supercomputer in six months or a year that consists of graphics processors that are not leading edge.
“If they had wanted to persuade Amazon and Google to build the supercomputer, they would have had to define for them what goal they wanted to achieve and not the exact manner in which the supercomputer would be built. Therefore, the tender is not suitable for cloud providers from the start, but rather for local integration companies such as Bynet, Med1, Server Farm or EdgeConneX – companies that receive precise definitions, lower pricing and perform the work required of them.” Despite this, if Oracle bids for the tender or even wins it, this would mark its return to major Israeli government tenders after its loss in the Nimbus tender three years ago.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on December 31, 2024
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