Israel ranks third for leading GenAI companies worldwide

A series of international studies presented by the Israel Innovation Authority has shed light on Israel’s impact on the GenAI space, with 73 Israeli companies engaged in the field. Representing 4% of all GenAI companies, it means that Israel ranks third globally after only the USA and UK.

“At a time when Generative AI leads the forefront of innovation, we are witnessing impressive growth of Israeli companies in this field,” said Dror Bin, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority during AI Week at the Yuval Ne'eman Workshop at Tel Aviv University. “According to the research, Israel is third in the world for active companies in the field of GenAI.”

The studies presented by Bin include reports from Tortoise, the AI Index Report 2024 - Stanford University, the QUID 2023 database, Europe and Israel’s Founder Factories GenAI Edition, the Dealroom 2004 database, and the IVC database. Another recent study from PitchBook was presented for the first time that examined two main groups:

• Companies producing foundation models - where Israel’s AI21 Labs operated alongside 18 other major companies; and
• Companies producing large and complex models for specific uses - where 73 of the 1,900 companies were Israeli.

In both instances, Israel ranked third place in the world after the USA and UK.

"Against the strengths we identify – the number of new companies established and the amount of money invested in AI companies in Israel over the last decade – it is clear to us that there is a stupendous race of investments in the field worldwide,” Bin continued. “We know very well that if we don't run forward at the same pace, we will be left behind. We intend to invest around 600 million NIS \[$160 million\] from the national program budget of 1 billion NIS \[$267.1 million\] by the end of 2024, and we are progressing according to plan on all relevant fronts. I'm pleased to announce that in July, a call for proposals will be published for the establishment in Israel of a supercomputer for training large artificial intelligence models, for the benefit of the high-tech industry and academia."

According to Startup Genome, the Tel Aviv startup ecosystem moved up to fourth place position on its ranking and is now tied with Los Angeles. StartupBlink’s annual Startup Ecosystem Report ranks Israel in third place behind the USA and UK with its gap to the UK narrowing. It also ranked Israel 1st in the world for the number of R&D branches, including 11 global tech brands such as Intel, IBM, and Oracle.