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Amazon finalized deal to buy Israeli startup CloudEndure for $200 million

CloudEndure, which provides business continuity software solutions for disaster recovery, is not the first or the biggest Israeli acquisition by the e-commerce giant. In 2015, Amazon acquired Annapurna Labs for $360 million, which became the center for developing chips used by Amazon Web Services, its cloud-computing unit. Additionally, Amazon also has a smaller research and development unit in Israel working on its cashierless supermarkets, as well as another group working on computer vision for smart speakers. This most recent deal in Amazon’s storied past with Israel has been finalized in January 2019 and is expected to be promptly announced, according to Haaretz.
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Israel prepares for historic Moon landing

This February, Israel’s Beresheet (Hebrew for ‘beginning’) spacecraft is set to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission, expected to take two months, will catapult Israel into a select group alongside only three other nations - the U.S., the former Soviet Union and China - to make successful ‘soft landings’ on the lunar surface.

“Our ultimate aim is to create a profile of the magnetic field of the Moon and understand its origin,” said Weizmann Institute Professor and SpaceIL Mission Scientist Oded Aharonson, in a statement.

In addition to its science mission, Beresheet will take a time capsule to the Moon that will include symbols such as the Israeli flag and the country’s national anthem, “Hatikvah.”
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Israel's innovation nerve center and entrepreneurial risk sensibility hailed number one in the world 

According to the latest Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on October 17, 2018, the Startup Nation’s R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP also got top ratings, and the country came in second, after the US, in venture capital availability, and third in the number of companies that embrace disruptive ideas, making the Jewish state’s overall ranking 20 out of the 140 countries listed. Israel led the Middle East and North Africa ranking, and “the country has grown to become one of the world’s innovation hubs thanks to a very strong innovation ecosystem (10th best in the world),” the report said.
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Israeli technological pride making historic journey to 'touch' the sun with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe

The solar probe, which will reach some six million kilometers from Earth’s star at its closest point, is carrying four instrument suites engineered to examine the dynamic region close to the sun, of which the craft’s only imaging instrument is built by the Migdal Ha’emek-based TowerJazz company.

“TowerJazz has been working with SRI for several years to develop custom technology to support US government imaging applications,” said Mike Scott, director of TowerJazz USA Aerospace & Defense. “We are very pleased to see our teamwork take flight in this exciting endeavor by NASA. We value our collaboration with SRI to deliver this highly advanced CMOS imaging technology to NRL and we look forward to more joint success in the future,” reported by the Jerusalem Post, October 2018.
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Israel marks 30^th anniversary of its first satellite launch

The Jewish State became the eighth country in the world to launch an object into orbit with the deployment of Ofek 1 from Palmahim Airbase on September 19, 1988 at 11.32am, a major step forward for Israel’s technological revolution, which continues to change the world. "Within a short period of time, we built a purely ‘blue-and-white’ space industry with outstanding capabilities and achievements. Only few nations across the world can boast comparable accomplishments,” said Brigadier General (ret.) Amnon Harari, Head of Space Programs, Directorate of Defense R&D, Israel Ministry of Defense, reported by the Jerusalem Post.
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Tel Aviv University is ranked 8^th worldwide for producing entrepreneurs, the only non-American university in the top 10

The annual study, carried out by PitchBook in 2018, revealed that undergraduate programs at Tel Aviv University, Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University are all ranked in the top 35 universities worldwide for producing graduate entrepreneurs who have subsequently raised a round of venture capital funding. Tel Aviv University, up one place from its 2017 ranking, has produced 640 entrepreneurs and 531 companies that have raised $7.91 billion in venture capital funding since 2006. The school’s MBA programs are ranked 13^th worldwide for producing entrepreneurs, with 233 entrepreneurs across 221 companies raising $3.78 billion in funding, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.
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Intel’s newest and fastest processors for laptops are sired by Haifa team

According to The Times of Israel, the US semiconductor giant announced in August 2018 new additions to its 8th generation processors, targeted at super-thin and light laptops, with the promise of up to 12 times faster connectivity speeds and twice the performance of a 5-year-old PC. The design of the new processors was led by its development team in Haifa, Israel. “Our engineers have worked closely with the industry to ensure that all the important elements in the system are working properly,” said Ran Senderovitz, a VP at Intel and the general manager of Intel Israel Development Centers, in a Hebrew statement.
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Israeli high-tech firms raised $1.61b in Q2/2018

July continued the strong fundraising trend of the three previous months in #Israel, led by $125 million for retail-tech company Trax Image Recognition, following on the heels of an IVC Research Center report revealing that Israeli high-tech companies raised $1.61 billion in 170 deals in Q2 of 2018.
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Intel submitted detailed plan for $5 billion plant expansion in Israel

The plan, submitted in May, involves a major overhaul of the chip manufacturer's Fab 28 plant in the town of Kiryat Gat.  Intel said it was responsible for $3.6 billion of Israel’s exports in 2017, which represents about 8% of the country’s total tech exports. The company also said its plants have produced $50 billion worth of goods throughout their entire lifetime. Local investments and acquisitions have totaled $35 billion. “Intel and Israel are a wonderful story of a partnership that started in 1974,” Intel’s top executive in the country, Yaniv Garty, said in a statement.
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Intel's Haifa-based team led the development of its new line of eighth generation processors, unveiled in April 2018, including what the company calls its ‘best processor ever’ for laptops

This is not the first time that Intel’s R&D team in Haifa has led the design of the US giant’s processors. In 2016, the company, Intel’s largest outside the United States, launched its ‘strongest and fastest ever’ processor, Kaby Lake, also sired in Haifa, while in September 2017 it unveiled a new family of desktop computer processors with its ‘best ever’ gaming processor for desktops.

Intel has been operating in Israel since 1974 and employs around 10,000 workers in its Kiryat Gat production center and in four development centers, in Haifa, Yakum, Jerusalem and Petah Tikva.
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