Israel’s first open-access AI supercomputer to launch in September

SDS (Shonfeld Data Services), Israel’s largest server farm operator, has completed the construction of a new supercomputer with an investment of NIS 1 billion (approximately $300M), Calcalist has learned. The system, which will officially begin operating in September, is expected to be the most powerful AI supercomputer in Israel, one of the most powerful globally, and the first designed for use in the local business and academic market.

SDS, owned by Yossi Schonfeld and Danny Bilicki, is the leading player in Israel’s server farm sector. Its new system, SDS-AI, joins Nvidia’s Israel-1, which was launched about a year and a half ago. At the time of its debut, Israel-1 was the most powerful supercomputer in the country and among the strongest worldwide. It currently ranks 44th on the global Top500 list.

SDS-AI differs from Nvidia’s system in several key ways. While Israel-1 is based on Nvidia’s previous-generation Hopper H100 architecture, SDS-AI is powered by 2,032 of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell B200 AI processors. Thanks to both faster processing speeds and a significantly larger number of processors, SDS-AI is expected to deliver 6.5 to 6.8 times the performance of Israel-1. The company is already planning to expand the system further with thousands of additional processors in 2026.

Perhaps most significantly, while Israel-1 was designed primarily for Nvidia’s internal use and select partners, SDS has built its supercomputer for the broader Israeli ecosystem. The system will be available to local startups and academic researchers, providing the first opportunity for AI entrepreneurs and scholars in Israel to access high-level computing resources domestically.

Until now, Israeli companies and researchers working on AI projects have relied on supercomputers abroad, often facing difficulty securing sufficient computing time. The launch of SDS-AI is expected to provide greater accessibility to advanced AI infrastructure, strengthen local innovation, and potentially help bring Israeli researchers working overseas back to the country.