For the primary time since Intel’s resolution 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, during which former IDF Chief of Workers Aviv Kohavi, former Israel Police chief Roni Alsheikh, and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper act as advisors.
That is an formidable plan, the whole funding during which may 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 may have 350 staff together with 150 in R&D. The initiative is barely in its early phases, and in line with estimates, the fund is within the means of elevating capital to buy the land
Awz, a veteran defense-tech fund that has thus far 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. Nevertheless, the chips may even be appropriate for industrial industries in Israel such because the automotive sector, communications, quantum computing and medical gadgets. In keeping with the Awz announcement, the fast funding will attain NIS 5 billion, in cooperation with the Ministry of Financial system and Trade, the Ashkelon Municipality, the Ministry of Finance, the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), and the Israel Innovation Authority.
Startups and tutorial institutes will be capable of entry the amenities
The plant plans to develop and produce chips which might be important for AI infrastructure, quantum computing, 5G and 6G communications, and quite a lot of strategic safety functions. Awz, “That is the primary non-public 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 may even enable startups and tutorial institutes to entry it.
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Awz founder and CEO Yaron Ashkenazi mentioned, “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 creating 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 Trade Nir Barkat, Minister of Financial system and Trade director common Moti Hagay, and Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam.
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on November 13, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.




