{"id":615892,"date":"2026-09-14T15:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T15:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/615892\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T15:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T15:22:15","slug":"from-missile-defense-to-artificial-intelligence-how-technion-is-preparing-israel-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/615892\/","title":{"rendered":"From missile defense to artificial intelligence: How Technion is preparing Israel for"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than a century, the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology has played a central role in Israeli science, engineering and technology, and for its president, Prof. Uri Sivan, the past few years have demonstrated just how closely academia is connected to the country\u2019s resilience. <\/p>\n

Speaking to ynet Global ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Sivan said that despite war and extraordinary pressure, Israeli academia and high-tech continued to develop and innovate. He pointed in particular to missile interception technology, recalling how intercepted debris and cluster munitions fell on the Technion campus in Haifa. Walking through the campus after one such incident, he had a striking realization: \u201cWe are certainly the only university globally being defended by technology developed by its own graduates.\u201d That resilience, he said, is driven by a deeply rooted \u201csense of mission\u201d and a belief that the Technion bears responsibility for Israel\u2019s security, economy and society.<\/p>\n

Interview with the President of the Technion<\/p>\n

(Photo: Tal Saar)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Looking toward the technologies that will shape the future, Sivan argued that success depends less on predicting the next breakthrough than on building the foundations that allow breakthroughs to happen. The Technion invested early in fields including semiconductors, aerospace, nanotechnology and quantum technologies, and Sivan believes the same long-term philosophy must guide education.<\/p>\n

Rather than training students in the latest software or application, he said, the university emphasizes mathematics, physics, engineering and the ability to solve difficult problems. \u201cWe don\u2019t train them for the first job,\u201d he said. \u201cWe train them for a lifetime career.\u201d That philosophy is particularly important in the age of artificial intelligence, which Sivan believes is fundamentally different from previous technological revolutions. \u201cArtificial intelligence is not just yet another industrial revolution,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is something else, as it touches at the very core of human existence, which is knowledge and thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Prof. Uri Sivan, President of the Technion University <\/p>\n

(Photo: Gil Nehushtan)<\/p>\n

AI offers extraordinary opportunities, but Sivan warned that instant access to answers could also change the way people think and learn. \u201cWhat does it mean to know something if everything man knows is just one prompt away?\u201d he asked. If answers are always immediately available, the risk is that people stop doing the intellectual work required to reach them. Unlike GPS, which allowed people to outsource navigation, AI could mean \u201coutsourcing our very essence,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Yet the excitement of human discovery remains irreplaceable. Sivan recalled a PhD student who, alone in an empty laboratory at 4 a.m., finally solved a scientific problem the team had worked on for more than a year. At that moment, the student realized he was the only person in the world who knew the answer. \u201cThose eureka moments are indispensable,\u201d Sivan said.<\/p>\n

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The Technion University today<\/p>\n

(Photo: Nitzan Zohar, Technion Spokesperson)<\/p>\n

Ultimately, however, Sivan believes Israel\u2019s most pressing challenges may not be technological at all. Science and technology, he said, \u201cshould serve society\u201d rather than exist for their own sake, and universities have a responsibility to educate students with that wider purpose in mind. <\/p>\n

As Israel enters a new year, his greatest concern is the country\u2019s internal fragmentation. \u201cThe major challenges we\u2019re facing are actually societal ones,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are being torn apart by division.\u201d His Rosh Hashanah message to Israel\u2019s students, scientists and researchers is therefore also a message to the wider country: knowledge must continue to be developed and supported, but it must ultimately benefit society. \u201cWhat worries me most is really the fragmentation of our society,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cMy wish for the next year, but actually forever, is that we find the ways to live together despite disagreement. There is so much common to us. There are so many challenges. Let\u2019s focus on them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than a century, the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology has played a central role in Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-615892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}