In the 70s, several international high-tech companies came to Israel and established R&D centers “in Zion”. In addition, local industry continued to grow, and in 1974, the value of Israel’s export of products based on local R&D reached $200 million. The momentum of Israeli industry in general and that of high-tech in particular, was put on hold after the Yom Kippur War, but it recovered during the following years.
1972 - IBM comes to Israel. IBM established an R&D center under the auspices of Dr. Yossi Raviv.
1972 - Elscint becomes the first Israeli company traded on the Nasdaq. Elscint raised $4 million, at a company value of $10 million, in an issue underwritten by Hambrecht & Quist and Bache & Co.
1974 - The beginning of Israel’s romance with Intel. Intel established a software house in Haifa, its first outside North America. Five years later, the first mathematical processor, 8087, was developed at the R & D center. In the wake of this achievement, Intel CEO Andy Grove decided to establish a production plant here, which a few years later was built at Har Hotzvim in Jerusalem.
Israel’s romance with Intel continued with the establishment of more production plants and R&D centers, as well as the development of the MMX chip at the Haifa center. In 1995, Finance Minister Avraham Shochat and Intel Israel President Dov Frohman announced the establishment of an Intel plant in Kiryat Gat. The grant that Intel received from Israel’s government for $608 million, or 38% of the setup cost - as well as grants received by other companies such as Tower Semiconductors for $200 million and Vishay for $100 million - aroused sharp criticism from the public, but the Kiryat Gat plant nevertheless opened on schedule.
1977 - The BIRD Foundation is established. Bird-F, an American-Israeli R & D foundation that works in cooperation with the Office of the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and NIST (the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, was designed principally to enable Israeli high-tech companies to form strategic partnerships with large American firms.
During its initial years, the Bird-F’s budget was one of the main sources of funding for Israel’s young high-tech industry. In recent years, with the increase in the scope of risk capital investments, Bird-F has lost its special status, but it still constitutes an important element of government support of industry. Over the years, Bird-F has increased the scope of its support, and in 1999 it approved grants totaling $15.5 million divided between 21 high-tech projects, a third of them in the field of biology.
1979 - The first Merkava tanks are finally supplied to the IDF, after nine years of development.
1979 - The first solar-powered power plant was built at Ein Bokek, using a solar pool alongside the Dead Sea.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 3 May 2001