Thread: Parts of Israel's AI plan unveiled. Full release expected January 2020. Plan is globally aligned + includes concrete steps leveraging successful cybersecurity plan as a basis for this one, which only calls for $300-600M in gov investment. (1/n) https://iglob.es/?en1307979 

Israel is the world’s 3rd largest AI startups ecosystem (following US & China). To become a global leader in AI, the plan calls for: 1) more efficient talent pipelines, 2) a robust computing infrastructure, and 3) security. Let’s break them down: (2/n)

1) Talent: The plan calls for the creation of 4-6 academic AI research centers to train local and attract foreign talent. It also calls for a “professor model” to address IP stagnation and teaching talent being poached by corporations. (3/n)

Finally, it calls for matriculation exams in AI and compulsory courses in AI-enabled research methods. Israel also has the (unique) capacity to introduce young AI talents through existing nation-wide pre-military and military training programs. (4/n)

2) Computing infrastructure: Israel is known for its secure and robust critical infrastructure, a real asset in general and for this plan. The plan calls for a tender on AI Cloud construction, which only lists Western companies in this piece. (5/n)

The infrastructure is planned to be open for cross-sector collaborations and developments that will make AI applications more fluid. For a small and connected country like Israel, it's a feasible and advantageous structure (albeit being cloud based re: security (next up). (6/n)

3) This article downplays the security part, which is central to the plan (aside from the secure infrastructure). Being founded on the successful cybersecurity plan, Israel plans to pursue and use "secure AI" as an edge over other global offerings. (7/n)

However, we all know cloud is not a secure platform (in the least), so how is this going to compute? We can expect close collaboration between the companies building said AI cloud and Israeli entities. Very curious to see how it goes. (8/n)

Given Israel’s penchant for redesigning and using infrastructure it can trust, this plan alone may very well drive innovation in cloud security. Something to definitely look forward to, or not - depends on what side of the spectrum you are… (9/n)

Overall: This explains why Israel may very well pull it off at such low costs, especially if you account for foreign money poured into the country for AI development - with much of it being Russian and Chinese, by the way, but that’s for another thread . 10/10