Lame-Duck Biden Snubbed Israel on AI

"President Biden launched a partnership with Israel on artificial intelligence in 2022. It is now at risk from a questionable decision the administration announced a week before Mr. Biden left office.

The creation of the AI partnership was no surprise, as Israel has proved itself a global leader. Major U.S. tech companies focused on AI, including Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Intel and Salesforce, have all acquired Israeli AI startups in the past few years. The U.S.-Israel partnership was intended to bring this expertise to bear on national-security applications by "enhancing collaboration" between the countries' national-security councils.

So it was somewhat baffling that the administration restricted the export of AI chips to Israel. On Jan. 13 the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security announced export controls on advanced computing chips and certain closed AI model weights. The rule classified Israel as a Tier 2 country subject to advanced-chip export caps, instead of including it in the Tier 1 list of countries with no restrictions. (China and other U.S. adversaries are in Tier 3.)

The move creates unnecessary obstacles to the longstanding and much-needed U.S.-Israel AI partnership. Nvidia, which acquired Israeli startup run:ai in December, called the export-control rule "unprecedented and misguided," and countered by announcing that it would invest half a billion dollars in a new AI research center in Israel.

Israel's exclusion from the Tier 1 list is particularly baffling in a post-Oct. 7 world, since the ensuing combat has led Israel to develop homeland-security applications that the U.S. needs. Israel has been piloting drone-detection systems that use AI to geolocate and track threats in real time. That's exactly the type of AI that the U.S. Defense Department said it needed in a December counter-drone strategy document, which promised the Pentagon would "fully incorporate allies and partners."

The Trump administration should respond by immediately adding Israel to the Tier 1 list, eliminating any restrictions on AI chips to Israel. Doing so is in the best interests of U.S. national security and America's effort to execute its National Strategy on Critical and Emerging Technologies, which specifically calls for coordination and partnerships with like-minded allies.

The matter is urgent. Experts were concerned about U.S. capabilities in AI even before a Chinese company released DeepSeek last week. A 2021 report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence -- co-chaired by former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt -- didn't mince words: "America is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era."

Cutting off Israel from America's high-stakes battle for technological dominance doesn't help.

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Mr. Cohen is a general partner at AGP Ventures and cofounder of the CET Sandbox, a U.S.-Israel innovation hub on critical and emerging technologies." [1]

Right. Most of the world thinks that Israel's premier is an criminal with blood of genocide on his hands, 40 000 killed just recently, half of them  not fighting women. Just give him advanced AI technologies and watch the reaction of the world. Or, maybe not? 

1.  Lame-Duck Biden Snubbed Israel on AI. Cohen, Scott.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 29 Jan 2025: A13.