The special collaboration will help advance Israeli innovation, energy security, and civil aviation. After concluding the project feasibility study, Boeing and the Technion announce advancement to the next stage of practical development

January 27, 2026 – Dr. Brendan Nelson, President of Boeing Global, visited the Technion yesterday to mark a milestone in the activities of the Boeing–Technion Innovation Centre for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and to launch the implementation phase. This strategic partnership, the Boeing–Technion SAF Innovation Centre, was launched in 2023 to develop sustainable fuels for the aviation industry. According to the project partners, aviation’s long-term growth will be enabled by producing SAF from feedstocks including green hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and the joint centre will advance this process to a level that enables commercial production at a competitive cost.

Also participating in the visit on behalf of Boeing were Boeing Israel President Maj. Gen. (res.) Ido Nehushtan and Haggai Mazursky, Head of the SAF project. The Boeing delegation was welcomed at the Technion by Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan; Vice President for Research Prof. Noam Adir; Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations Prof. Yuval Garini; and Head of the Centre Prof. Gidi Grader of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering.

Dr. Nelson, a physician by training, previously held senior positions in the Australian government, including Member of the Australian Parliament, Minister of Defence, Minister for Education and Science, and Ambassador to Europe. During his visit to the Technion, Nelson said: “In addition to delivering high-quality fuel-efficient airplanes to our customers, Boeing works globally and regionally to enhance energy security, support the growth of the civil aviation industry, and create new economic opportunities through sustainable aviation fuel and other technologies. We are pleased to partner with Technion and other stakeholders in the SAF Innovation Centre to support Israel’s aerospace industry.”

“This is a historic collaboration of national importance for the State of Israel,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “The partnership with the global aviation leader, Boeing, is, for us, a vote of confidence in the Technion, its researchers, and our technological capabilities. Through this collaboration, Technion experts are taking on a tremendous mission: to develop technologies for producing clean fuels through sustainable processes, thereby making a significant contribution to aviation—and no less importantly, to human health and the environment. I do not doubt that we will meet this challenge, just as we have met many others over the past hundred years.”

“Boeing has been active in Israel since before the establishment of the State and serves as an important supplier to El Al and the Israeli Air Force,” said Maj. Gen. (res.) Ido Nehushtan, President of Boeing Israel. “Israeli industries are now key suppliers to Boeing, and many Israeli systems are integrated into the company’s products worldwide. Boeing has continued to deepen its research and development ties with academia and industry in Israel, as well as its investments in the high-tech sector.” The President of Boeing Israel added that the collaboration between the Technion and Boeing will pave the way for the development of Israel’s most advanced technologies and capabilities, which will be integrated into future generations of aerospace systems around the world.

The Boeing–Technion partnership was initiated by Boeing and includes partners from across the industry and government in Israel. The Israeli Government has provided measures and financial support to accelerate the Israeli SAF industry, which include Israel’s Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology establishing the ISAF research consortium and the Israel Innovation Authority launching SAF-IL which is an incubation program for Israeli start-ups dealing with SAF development.

To lead this groundbreaking vision for the development of SAF, Boeing partnered with Prof. Gidi Grader of the Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering to establish the centre, which has now completed its proof-of-concept phase. As part of the partnership, 11 Technion faculty members and dozens of doctoral students from five different faculties are working on various aspects of aviation fuel production, including efficient and competitive manufacturing; theoretical aspects of catalytic reactions and fuel combustion; safety considerations; full life-cycle analysis; and the establishment and operation of an experimental fuel-testing facility at the Technion, which will be only the second of its kind in the world.

The announcement of the Boeing–Technion partnership was originally planned for October 2023. Despite the events of October 7 and the war that followed, the decision was made to continue with the technical work, as Dr. Nelson explained several months later: “We launched this initiative, a project of resilience and innovation in the spirit of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, shortly after the horrific October 7 attack. When I met the Prime Minister a few months earlier, I told him that if there is one country in the world capable of solving civil aviation’s emissions challenge, it is Israel, led by the Technion—the Israeli MIT.”

Now, two years later, following the completion of the initial feasibility phase, senior Boeing executives were presented with the progress achieved to date, and the second phase of the initiative was launched: the development of SAF produced from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and the advancement of the process to a level that will enable competitive commercial production.

Five companies across the hardware-software stack position Israel among the world’s most dynamic quantum hubs.

Israel’s quantum computing sector is experiencing a breakout year. In 2025 alone, five Israeli quantum companies have raised almost $500 million, an influx of capital that places the country among the most active and diversified quantum hubs in the world. The companies – Quantum Art, Classiq, QuamCore, Qedma, and Quantum Machines – span nearly every layer of the quantum stack, from hardware and scaling architectures to control systems and error-correction software.

Quantum Art: A Hardware Bet With an Aggressive Roadmap

The most recent deal came on Wednesday, when Quantum Art announced a $100 million Series A, bringing its total funding to $124 million. The round was led by Bedford Ridge Capital with participation from Battery Ventures, Destra Investments, Lumir Growth Partners, Disruptive AI, Harel Insurance, and others, alongside continued investment from Amiti Ventures, StageOne Ventures, Vertex Ventures, Entrée Capital, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Founded as a spin-off from Prof. Roee Ozeri’s group at the Weizmann Institute, the company is led by Dr. Tal David (CEO), Dr. Amit Ben Kish (CTO), and Ozeri (CSO). It specializes in trapped-ion quantum computing, a field long known for precision but criticized for scalability. Quantum Art argues it has solved key challenges through proprietary techniques in multi-qubit gates, modular architectures, and robust error correction.

In June, the company unveiled an unusually detailed roadmap targeting Quantum Advantage by 2027 and a one-million-qubit system by 2033. The timeline includes a 50-qubit system next year; a 1,000-qubit “Perspective” line in 2027; an ultra-dense 12,000-40,000 qubit “Landscape” platform; and ultimately a fault-tolerant “Mosaic” architecture.

Classiq: Software as the Missing Layer

Quantum computer
Quantum computer. (Courtesy)

On the software side, Classiq raised an estimated $30 million in November in an up-round that included AMD Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, IonQ, and major financial institutions such as Mirae Asset Capital, Bank Leumi’s LeumiTech77, and Quantum Eretz. The company has now raised more than $200 million to date, following a $110 million Series C completed just six months earlier and an additional $10 million investment from SoftBank.

מוסף חג העצמאות 25.4.23 מייסדי החברה מימין ניר מינרבי אמיר נוה ד׳׳ר יהודה נוה חברת Classiq
Classiq founders. (Photo: Eyal Toueg)

Classiq builds an operating system and development environment that translates high-level goals into quantum circuits, allowing organizations to build applications without deep knowledge of quantum physics. Its partnerships with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and AWS, and customers including BMW Group, Comcast, Rolls-Royce, Citi, Toshiba, and SoftBank, suggest that enterprises increasingly see value in preparing for quantum computing years before the hardware matures.

Founded in 2020 by CEO Nir Minerbi, CPO Amir Naveh, and CTO Dr. Yehuda Naveh, the company employs 100 people, three-quarters of whom are based in Israel.

QuamCore: The Race to a Million Qubits

In August, QuamCore raised $26 million in a Series A that brought its total funding to $35 million, including a $4 million grant from the Israel Innovation Authority. The round was led by Sentinel Global, with participation from Arkin Capital and returning investors Viola Ventures, Earth & Beyond Ventures, Surround Ventures, Rhodium, and Qbeat.

מייסדי QuamCore
QuamCore founders. (Photo: QuamCore)

QuamCore claims to have developed a fully designed and simulated architecture for scaling superconducting quantum systems to one million qubits in a single cryostat, far beyond the ~5,000-qubit per-module limit achieved by Google and IBM. If validated, the approach would fundamentally rewrite assumptions about the physical limits of superconducting systems.

The company is led by CEO Alon Cohen, formerly of Mobileye’s EyeC Radar Group, and CTO Prof. Shay Hacohen-Gourgy and Chief Scientist Prof. Serge Rosenblum, both leading figures in superconducting quantum research at the Technion and the Weizmann Institute. Their combined academic work has appeared in Science, Nature, and other top journals.

Qedma: Fixing Quantum Computing’s Biggest Problem

Error rates remain the defining barrier to practical quantum computing, and Israeli startup Qedma has positioned itself squarely at this chokepoint. The company raised $26 million in July in a Series A led by Glilot+ with participation from IBM, Korean Investment Partners, and others.

QEDMA עובדי חברת קדמה
Qedma team. (Photo: Eyal Toueg)

Qedma develops software that identifies and learns the noise profile of each quantum device and adjusts algorithms to suppress and mitigate errors. The company claims its methods can enable quantum calculations up to 1,000 times larger than today’s hardware alone can support. That would dramatically reduce the overhead required for quantum error correction, which typically consumes up to 1,000 physical qubits for every single logical qubit.

The company traces its origins to a 2020 conversation between Prof. Netanel Lindner and Dr. Asif Sinay, later joined by Prof. Dorit Aharonov, a pioneer of the fault-tolerance theorem that proved large-scale quantum computing was theoretically possible. Their weekly discussions evolved into a startup aiming to build the “operating layer” that quantum machines currently lack.

Quantum Machines: Control Systems Become Strategic

The year’s largest raise came in February, when Quantum Machines closed a $170 million Series C, bringing its total investment to $280 million and valuing the company at an estimated $700 million. PSG Equity led the round with participation from Red Dot Capital Partners, Intel Capital, TLV Partners, Battery Ventures, and entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz.

מייסדי Quantum Machines קוואנטום משינס ד”ר יונתן כהן CTO , ד”ר איתמר סיון, מנכ"ל וד”ר ניסים אופק מהנדס ראשי
Quantum Machines team. (Photo: Ilya Melnikov)

Quantum Machines builds hybrid control systems used across nearly every type of quantum hardware. Its technology has seen broad global adoption, including through a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA on DGX Quantum, which integrates real-time quantum control with high-speed classical computing.

The company was founded in 2018 by Dr. Itamar Sivan (CEO), Dr. Yonatan Cohen (CTO), and Dr. Nissim Ofek (VP R&D), all alumni of the Weizmann Institute’s Submicron Center.

Prof. Gal Shmuel of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology has developed an innovative approach that enables precise control of heat conduction in ways that do not occur naturally.

The breakthrough could lead to new applications in energy harvesting and in protecting heat-sensitive devices. The research, conducted in collaboration with Prof. John R. Willis of the University of Cambridge, was published in Physical Review Letters.

The researchers’ approach is based on designing materials with asymmetric and nonuniform microstructures, inspired by similar methods previously developed for controlling light and sound—but never applied before to heat conduction. The challenge in adapting these ideas stems from the fact that light and sound propagate as waves, while heat spreads through a spontaneous process known as diffusion.

The solution developed by Profs. Willis and Shmuel relies on a unique homogenization method that accurately maps the average heat flow in composite materials. Using this method, the two propose thermal metamaterials (engineered materials with thermal properties not found in nature) in which the average heat flow is asymmetric: the heat flow pattern depends on the direction from which it enters the material.

This engineered asymmetry makes it possible to “tame heat,” guiding it in desired directions. According to Prof. Shmuel, “This capability is essential for various technological applications. It expands our toolkit for managing heat and offers new solutions for protecting temperature-sensitive electronics and efficiently routing heat in thermal energy harvesting systems.”

At 15, when a neurological condition took Tobias Weinberg’s ability to speak, aspects of his personality became more difficult to express.

Typing to communicate, he struggled to keep up in conversations, especially to make the jokes or sarcastic comments that had been his norm. And his first text-to-voice device was monotone, with Mexican or Spanish accents but not his native Argentinian.

“The monotone voices, the timing of interjections and conveying my personality through this new way of communication was definitely frustrating,” wrote Weinberg, now a doctoral student and Siegel PiTech Fellow at Cornell Tech. As part of the Matter of Tech Lab, he is exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the technologies that he and more than two million Americans with speech disabilities use to communicate.

Through a standing partnership between Cornell Tech and YAI—a nonprofit that supports more than 20,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New York, New Jersey and California—Weinberg spent a year working with a group of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) users who live in group homes in Tarrytown, New York to better understand needs and behaviors and to improve prototypes.

The resulting research and lines of inquiry, which incorporate Weinberg’s own experience, could transform assistive technology design.

The field is taking notice. Weinberg’s first paper—”Why so serious?”—won best paper honorable mention and jury best demo awards at the prestigious Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Those are highly coveted commendations according to his advisor, Thijs Roumen, assistant professor at Cornell Tech.

“Tobi really is a trailblazer,” said Roumen, who has a joint appointment in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “He’s been developing technology while also using the technology, which changes the way it’s shaped and the way we reflect on it. In the process, he’s hitting on a richness that is going to make the future of AAC technology much much better, and he’s also inspiring a whole generation of researchers.”

Judith Bailey-Hung, supervisor of the YAI Center for Innovation and Engagement, said he’s also inspiring the AAC users involved in his studies.

“For the people we support, it was very powerful to see that this person’s working on their Ph.D., they’re interested in improving how you communicate, and they want to involve you in that process,” said Bailey-Hung, who has supervised three Cornell Tech interns as part of a larger partnership. “It gives them a voice and a way to advocate for themselves.”

Humor, backchanneling and AI villains

Heather Klippel, who has cerebral palsy and lives in a YAI group home, has similar frustrations with AAC devices to Weinberg’s—she gets overwhelmed when too many people are speaking and struggles to convey tone and humor.

“Those things are very hard to express as a nonverbal person,” Klippel wrote.

In the first of two studies, Weinberg interviewed Klippel and six others and designed an interface that could help users write jokes or humorous comments they can then interject in real time.

“There is an inherent tradeoff between agency and efficiency when designing AI tools that support communication,” Weinberg wrote. “While an AI auto-complete will enable making humorous comments faster, there is a risk that it diminishes the user’s sense of agency by making jokes for users instead of with the user.”

Weinberg designed interfaces that explored this tradeoff—in one, users selected keywords they wanted the AI to use in crafting a joke; in another, they were able to edit and modify AI-written jokes; and in another, they could simply choose a joke that the AI provided.

“What we found is in time-pressured scenarios, like making a humorous comment, AAC users were willing to give up some agency to deliver the comment faster,” Weinberg wrote. “This challenged the existing research that said AAC users care most about maximum agency, which is true in general but not always.”

Student draws on experience to transform assistive communication
At 15, Weinberg lost the ability to speak and found it harder to communicate certain aspects of his personality, like humor. Now, he’s working to make assistive communication technologies more expressive. Credit: Alexandra Bayer/Cornell University

That led Weinberg and his collaborators to think about the purpose of humor. Often, he said, the joke itself is less important than participation and engagement in the conversation. The team started to consider other types of “backchanneling,” or ways we communicate engagement, alongside the primary conversation, like saying “uh-huh” or nodding.

In a second study with the AAC users—resulting in a paper, “One does not simply ‘Mm-hmm'” presented at the ASSETS’ Conference on Computers and Accessibility in October—Weinberg and his team found that the participants formed their own micro-culture of bachkchanneling, such as tapping their armrests to indicate agreement or raising eyebrows. The interviews and observations led him and his team to recommend a design approach that amplifies and incorporates what users are already doing, rather than imposing mainstream behaviours.

“There can be this tendency to just want to build an app and solve a problem,” Roumen said. “But by asking ourselves these fundamental questions and driving the curiosity that Tobi brings as a researcher to really understand what’s happening, we can now start to understand how we can be really impactful in this space.”

Those fundamental questions are often also ethical ones. For a third paper currently in submission, Weinberg developed an app that collected everything he’d typed over a period of seven months and used the text to train a large language model that could help facilitate and speed his communication.

While the resulting “AI-twin” captured a verbal identity, incorporating characteristic phrases and Argentinian slang, it failed in practice to suggest or provide that language in appropriate contexts and risked exposing private information at the wrong times. Weinberg also felt the app dampened control over his own self-presentation.

“AI is a very wonderful but dangerous technology, especially if it mediates everything we say as AAC users,” Weinberg wrote. “So, my work serves both sides, providing design guidelines for future developers and also playing the villain, warning of the socio-technical implications of AI in the lives of AAC users like myself.”

Building community, inspiring others

Weinberg disassembled his first computer at age 2 and at age 7 told his parents he wanted to invent things that would help people. But when he arrived at Cornell Tech for a summer internship in 2022, he didn’t know what a Ph.D. was and did not see it in his future.

Wendy Ju, associate professor at Cornell Tech, encouraged Weinberg to apply for the doctoral program after completing his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. In 2023, he joined Roumen’s lab, intending to work on digital fabrication. But Roumen encouraged Weinberg, as he does all students, to find a project he really cared about.

“I told Thijs, there was this other thing I really care about, but neither of us has any experience with it,” Weinberg wrote. “He was on board to give it a try, and here we are.”

Weinberg and Roumen teamed with Stephanie Valencia at the University of Maryland, who specializes in AI and agency in AAC use. After overcoming steep learning curves—embarking on what Roumen calls “a journey” for them both—Weinberg is now inspiring others.

“It amazes me that somebody with an AAC device was going for his doctorate,” Klippel wrote. “I know that people with disabilities can achieve such high degrees in education, but it was quite an honor to actually meet somebody like this.”

The studies have also built community. Klippel said she became closer to another AAC user during the course of the studies and continued the friendship.

For Weinberg, seeing that connection form was one of the most rewarding parts of the research. “It didn’t feel like a workshop, it felt like a couple of friends hanging out and sharing anecdotes about our AAC hurdles and use, not only for me but also for them,” he wrote.

The other reward was seeing the participants use the systems to express themselves in new ways. Weinberg often replays a video from the humor study, of an AAC user working with the platform to write a joke and bursting into laughter at what she had created.

“That made all the hard work worth it,” he wrote.

Looking ahead, Weinberg hopes to reframe AAC—not as a workaround for missing speech but as a medium of expression. “This vision represents a step toward the broader goal of enabling AAC users to fully participate in spoken communication and to flourish in society,” he wrote.

The laboratory, operating at the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was upgraded with the support of Apple, Intel, and NVIDIA

The Technion inaugurated the renovated VLSI Laboratory at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The field of VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration) – the creation of complex, multi-component integrated circuits—lies at the core of the development of advanced chips.

The laboratory was upgraded through an investment of approximately $1 million from Apple, Intel, and NVIDIA. The upgrade included renovation of the facilities, the addition of personnel, and the renewal of equipment. The inauguration ceremony was held in the presence of Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, Faculty Dean Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky, the VLSI Laboratory’s Academic Director Prof. Ran Ginosar, and senior executives from the three companies – all Technion alumni: Tamir Azarzar, Senior Vice President of Chip Design at NVIDIA; Karin Eibschitz Segal, CEO of Intel Israel and Corporate Vice President at Intel; and Rony Friedman, GM of Apple Israel.

Over the years, the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering has trained the scientific and technological leadership that has made a decisive contribution to establishing Israel’s status as a “Startup Nation” and as a global center for chip development. The faculty’s researchers and alumni have played a leading role in the evolution of the semiconductor industry and continue to do so in the development of chips and computing architectures for the era of artificial intelligence. The combination of deep foundational knowledge, mathematical excellence, creativity, and engineering innovation gives the faculty’s graduates – who integrate into and lead Israel’s high-tech industry – a sustained competitive advantage at the forefront of global technology.

The VLSI Laboratory focuses on the development of advanced computing architectures and large-scale integrated systems, including in-memory computing, hardware acceleration of artificial intelligence, hardware security, and highly energy-efficient systems. The companies’ investment in the laboratory reflects a deep commitment to training the next generation of VLSI engineers in Israel. This partnership between academia and industry is designed to provide students with practical knowledge at the cutting edge of technology and to ensure a strong pipeline of engineers who will lead chip development in the years ahead.

3.סטודנטים במעבדה החדשה
Students in the new laboratory

The inauguration of the laboratory marks a strategic step in deepening the connection between advanced academic research, education, and Israeli and global industry, and in strengthening the Technion’s position as a leading force in shaping the fields of microelectronics and computational hardware in Israel and worldwide.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan at the event

10% of the companies on the global “AI Disruptors” list were founded by Technion alumni

Greenfield Partners has released its 2025 AI Disruptors List highlighting the most important new companies in the field of artificial intelligence. Six of the companies on the list were founded by Technion graduates.

Out of the 60 companies on the list from around the world, 16 are Israeli, and among them, the following six were founded by Technion alumni:

  • Dustphotonics (ultra-fast communication in data centers)
  • Emerix (AI platform for supply chain, procurement, and inventory management)
  • Exodigo (subsurface mapping platform without excavation)
  • Decart (real-time interactive video generation)
  • PhaseV (optimization, acceleration, and improvement of clinical trials)
  • Qodo (automated code review and testing)

Itamar Friedman, CEO of Qodo, says that several members of the founding team had previously worked at Alibaba under Prof. Lehi Zelnik-Manor, now the Technion’s Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development. The company is developing an AI-based platform that automates and improves code quality throughout the development lifecycle. The goal: to help developers understand, refine, and maintain the standards they set for themselves – at a time when much of today’s code is generated by AI tools.

Itamar Friedman, CEO of Qodo

Friedman grew up in Karmi Yosef. “Even as a teenager, I started learning software development – specifically website building. I started a company in the field with several friends, and we reached 40 clients before I enlisted in the army. Technology has always fascinated me, and during my military service, I was exposed to the world of robotics, which drew me to the intersection between software and the physical world, and from there to electrical and computer engineering at the Technion. Already in my first year, I began to realize that almost every problem in the physical world boils down to an optimization problem. That fascinated me and pushed me to learn more and more about learning systems.”

He completed his B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with highest honors (specializing in learning systems and optimization) and an M.Sc. in machine learning and computer vision under the supervision of Prof. Zelnik-Manor. Today, with 25 years of experience in development – 20 of which involve algorithms and machine learning – he heads Qodo. “I really love sailing – the combination of calm and storm. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened much since founding Qodo,” he laughed. “Last August I moved to New York with three kids, two cats, and one wife – and I’m trying to keep that exact ratio: no more, no less.”

The AI Disruptors list was presented at the TechCrunch Disrupt conferencein San Francisco. The total valuation of the 60 companies on the list is approximately $3 billion. The publication of this “AI Breakthroughs” list adds to other recognitions of the Technion’s excellence: CSRankings ranks the Technion second in Europe in AI research, and PitchBook ranks the Technion among the top ten universities worldwide for entrepreneurial success of undergraduate alumni (not only in AI). Together, these achievements highlight the Technion’s brilliance – clearly reflected in its global alumni community of about 100,000 graduates.

H2Pro believes it can slash costs and clean up one of the world’s dirtiest industries.

H2PRO

In the Caesarea industrial zone, an Israeli startup is working on a technology that could help reinvent one of the world’s most polluting industries. H2Pro, founded in 2019 after a chance bus ride conversation between two Technion professors and later led by serial entrepreneur Talmon Marco, is aiming to transform how green hydrogen, hydrogen produced without carbon emissions from renewable energy, is generated.

The means: a fundamental re-architecture of electrolysis, the decades-old process used to produce hydrogen from water. The ambition is bold, streamlining the process enough to drive the cost of green hydrogen down to around one dollar per kilogram, making it competitive with hydrogen produced using fossil fuels.

Prof. Avner Rothschild (left), Prof. Gideon Grader of H2Pro (Daniel Campos)

Today, the world consumes roughly 100 million tons of hydrogen each year, a market worth an estimated $200 billion. “The large hydrogen market today is in refineries, chemical plants, and steel manufacturing, and in the future, jet fuel production,” says H2Pro CEO Tzahi Rodrig. The problem is that hydrogen production accounts for roughly 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“About half of the hydrogen used globally goes to ammonia production, and the other half to the oil industry,” says Prof. Gideon Grader, one of H2Pro’s founders from the Technion. “This market creates enormous pollution because of the way hydrogen is produced.”

Most hydrogen today is made using steam methane reforming (SMR), a cheap but highly polluting process that relies on natural gas. The clean alternative, electrolysis, which separates hydrogen from oxygen in water using electricity, has been known for more than a century, but it remains prohibitively expensive.

“The cost of producing hydrogen through electrolysis simply can’t compete with the polluting methods,” says Prof. Avner Rothschild, another Technion professor and company co-founder. The most expensive and problematic component, he explains, is the membrane at the heart of the electrolyser, which separates hydrogen and oxygen gases.

“Our invention challenged something that no one had questioned before,” says Rothschild. Instead of producing hydrogen and oxygen simultaneously, separated by a membrane, H2Pro’s system generates the two gases in separate stages.

In the first stage, one electrode produces hydrogen while the other temporarily stores oxygen. In the second stage, the oxygen is released. “This two-step architecture dramatically reduces costs and complexity,” Rothschild says.

The change required an entirely new type of electrode. “We had to reinvent the electrode, its composition, its structure, everything,” he explains. At H2Pro’s R&D facility in Caesarea, engineers manufacture electrodes from scratch, mixing metal powders and sintering them at temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees Celsius to withstand the harsh operating conditions inside the electrolyzer.

Protecting the technology poses its own challenge. “You can’t protect hydrogen itself, it’s a natural molecule,” says Dr. Revital Green of the Ehrlich Intellectual Property Group. “Once hydrogen is sold, there’s no way to trace its origin. That’s why protection has to focus on the system: the components, their configuration, and how they interact.”

For hydrogen to be truly green, it must be produced using renewable electricity from solar or wind. But those energy sources are inherently volatile.

“Conventional electrolyzers don’t cope well with fluctuations in power supply,” says Rothschild. “They degrade quickly, and that comes at a high cost.”

H2Pro’s system, by contrast, can be turned on and off repeatedly without damage. “Existing electrolyzers can’t handle constant cycling,” says Rodrig. “Ours can.”

That capability allows the system to be connected directly to solar fields. In theory, farmers growing tomatoes or cucumbers could also produce hydrogen on-site and sell it as an additional revenue stream.

“To reach one dollar per kilogram of hydrogen, every cost component has to be attacked,” says Rodrig. “Electricity is the biggest one. At around five cents per kilowatt-hour, the math starts to work.”

Talmon Marco, who chairs the company after selling Viber for $900 million in 2014 and Juno for $200 million in 2017, is cautious about timelines. “A dollar per kilogram is an extremely tough target,” he says. “But reaching a low, economically viable price, probably around 2031, is realistic.”

Marco frames the effort as part of a broader climate solution. “Green energy may be less fashionable right now, but progress is real, especially in China,” he says. “In the end, we’ll have to go where the problem leads us: solving the climate crisis.”

H2Pro has raised more than $100 million from investors, including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy fund and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. A 50-kilowatt system is already operating at its Caesarea facility. In February 2026, a 500-kilowatt system is scheduled to go live in Ziporit, near the Sea of Galilee, followed by a much larger system, up to 50 megawatts, in Spain or Portugal.

“There simply isn’t enough green hydrogen today,” says Rodrig. “Even if everyone wanted to switch tomorrow, the supply doesn’t exist. Someone has to build the infrastructure.”

That demand could soon explode. “Aviation wants hydrogen. Shipping wants hydrogen. Heavy-duty trucking wants hydrogen,” he says. “We’re talking about a market that could eventually reach trillions of dollars.”

Cornell Tech hosted the inaugural Disability and Access in Tech and AI Summit on Oct. 9-10 on its Roosevelt Island campus, bringing together researchers, technologists, and community advocates to explore how disability and accessibility intersect with innovation. The summit welcomed speakers, students, faculty, alumni, and community members from Cornell’s Ithaca campus, New York City, and around the United States.
The event, designed to be a space for dialogue, lived experience, and cross-sector collaboration in addition to showcasing research, was co-organized by Omari W. Keeles, senior director for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and Thijs Roumen, assistant professor of information science at Cornell Tech.

The idea to create the event emerged from conversations across campus and a growing recognition that accessibility deserves a central place in the tech landscape.

“We felt there was a bigger opportunity here,” said Roumen, who is also affiliated with the Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “The most important outcome is to find one another — those who built technology, those who make policy, and those who use the technology. There is so much we can all learn from one another.”

Thijs Roumen and Omari W. Keeles standing in front of a Cornell Tech banner background
Event organizers Thijs Roumen and Omari W. Keeles.

The event was powered by YAI, a nonprofit organization that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. YAI’s involvement helped ground the summit in real-world impact, connecting Cornell Tech’s academic community with practitioners and advocates working directly with people with disabilities. YAI also co-hosted interactive workshops, including one where attendees could try out assistive technologies and engage with startup founders developing tools for communication and mobility.
In welcome remarks, Keeles began the summit by acknowledging the systemic barriers that have historically excluded disabled voices from tech and academia. “When disabled researchers and practitioners lead and contribute to the development of technology, the outcomes are more responsive, more creative, and ultimately more just,” he said.

The opening keynote was delivered by Shiri Azenkot, associate professor of information science at Cornell Tech, Cornell Bowers, and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. Azenkot shared her lab’s work on making augmented and virtual reality technologies accessible to people with low vision and other disabilities.

One project involved designing an augmented reality system to help users locate specific products on store shelves, a task that can be frustrating and time-consuming without visual cues. Another explored how blind users could navigate social virtual reality environments using a “sighted guide” avatar they could virtually “hold onto.”

Throughout the summit, panels covered a wide range of topics, each rooted in personal experience and practical application. One session explored the challenges of navigating graduate school while undergoing cancer treatment, highlighting the often invisible nature of disability. Another focused on mental health and disability justice in higher education, with speakers reflecting on how institutions can better support students and faculty with neurodivergence or intellectual disabilities.

A panel on AI and safety examined how emerging technologies can support disabled people across cultures, while another featured startup founders building expressive communication tools for nonverbal users.

Stephanie Valencia, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, giving a talk on Day One of the Disability and Access in Tech and AI Summit.

The summit concluded with a powerful closing keynote by University of Washington Professor Jennifer Mankoff, a leading researcher in human-centered design and accessibility. Mankoff shared insights from her work on accessibility in AI and the importance of centering disabled voices in technology development.
The event’s hybrid format, in-person on Thursday and fully remote on Friday, reflected this ethos, ensuring broader participation for those unable to travel to New York City and expanding the accessibility of the summit.

Roumen said he hopes the summit will inspire students and technologists to think more deeply about accessibility — not just as a niche concern, but as a universal design challenge.

“I hope more people, even those not directly working on accessibility, take this important demographic into consideration when developing technology and policy,” he said. “This will not only make the world better for people with disabilities, but for everybody else too.”

With trauma compounding and resources stretched, could the Israel-Iran conflict accelerate the adoption of digital and AI-driven mental health care in Israel?

As Israel grapples with the psychological strain of compounded conflict, first following the October 7 Hamas attacks, and more recently with the confrontation against Iran in the wake of Operation Rising Lion, mental health resources are being stretched to their limits. Even amid the newly announced ceasefire, which is meant to offer a halt to hostilities for now, the emotional aftermath across the nation is far from resolved.

Systemic challenges like clinician shortages, access disparities, and a lingering stigma around traditional therapy stand in contrast to a growing, urgent national need for support. According to McKinsey, the total burden from mental health conditions in 2025 is estimated at 183 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). At the same time, “emerging therapeutic options such as digital therapies are gaining recognition for their accessibility and effectiveness, particularly in low-resource settings.”

Indeed, global online behavior reflects growing openness to and traction for such digital therapies. As highlighted by Harvard Business Review, therapy has become the leading use case for generative AI in 2025.

In Israel, a multitude of platforms are already operating in this space. These include AI-based services such as Kai.ai, physiological approaches from Calmigo, passive sensing technologies by Behavidence, and the digitally scaled trauma response of NATAL, Israel’s Trauma and Resiliency Centre.

While the current situation unfolds against the uncertainty of a ceasefire and atop over a year and a half of sustained conflict, it raises the question of whether this juncture will mark an inflection point for tech-enabled mental health care in Israel, and whether these tools will gain the trust, investment and institutional support to play a more central role.

Cracks in the system reveal a growing need for alternatives

In recent years, Israel’s mental health system has faced mounting pressure, with the current situation exposing the full extent of its strain. 

“Since October 7, we have seen an increase of 300% in people consuming psychiatric drugs in Israel,” said Adi Wallach, CEO and Co-Founder of Calmigo. “And the estimation right now is that there are 3 million people who are suffering from trauma.”

Organizations like NATAL, founded in 1998, have had to rapidly expand in response to escalating demand. In the earliest hours of October 7, it was the only helpline broadcast on Israeli television. It has also been instrumental in developing new, condensed treatment protocols adopted by both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defence. 

“Before October 7, NATAL had about 100 therapists,” said Ifat Morad, Director of International Relations, Partnerships and Resource Development. “Now we have more than 600 therapists all over Israel.” In tandem, the organization has launched a new app, expanded services via WhatsApp and Zoom, and integrated an AI bot to triage helpline calls. “We had about 400 people getting therapy one on one on a weekly basis. Now we have more than 3,000 on a weekly basis and counting,” she continued.

Mental health crises in Israel are often marked by waves of people turning to NATAL’s services. Speaking to the present national climate, Morad observed: “we are now in what we call rolling trauma. The trauma didn’t just finish. It’s rolling as we speak. We’re in it, all of us.”

Startups step in with tech-driven mental health solutions

While traditional mental health services in Israel have worked to leverage digitisation to expand their reach, several startups are aiming to address the growing mental health crisis with tech-first or hybrid solutions.

Kai.ai, a hybrid mental health platform combining human clinicians with conversation-based AI, has reached over 200,000 people in need. Initially launched in English, the service expanded to Ukrainian and Russian during the Ukraine war, and to Hebrew following October 7. In partnership with the humanitarian organization The Joint, Kai began offering free support to reservists, students, and civilians – a move it has continued amid the Israel-Iran conflict, now providing a full month of subsidized support to anyone impacted. The offer remains in place, notwithstanding the ceasefire.

For CEO Alex Frenkel, the AI component is central to the platform’s mission “because the AI is accessible 24/7.”

Calmigo, meanwhile, takes a physiological approach, offering a handheld device that activates the parasympathetic nervous system to deliver both immediate relief and long-term support. “You can think about the device as a remote control to your nervous system,” explained Wallach, who noted that Calmigo is one of the only non-medicated solutions providing fast-acting relief alongside sustained therapeutic benefits. “It’s as easy to use and as effective as a pill, but does not require a prescriber, and at a fraction of the cost as well.” Following October 7, the company donated 1,300 units to hostage families, soldiers, and traumatised children.

Behavidence was founded to bridge the gap in early diagnostics and intervention. “We detect mental health disorders or dynamics based on how you use your phone,” said Co-Founder Roy Cohen. “Just by passively sensing your patterns of behaviour.”

The passive approach, he explained, is key to long-term user retention. “We chose passive sensing because whenever we ask the user to do something, the chances of them staying with us a week later is gone.”

In the wake of October 7, the company also made its product freely available to support those affected. It is now working with HMOs and the Ministry of Defense to monitor PTSD symptoms in reservists.

For Cohen, the fundamental inefficiency in how care is delivered is a costly blind spot: “Treating early is cheap. But now the systems are designed to treat only when the symptoms are severe.”

Israeli eye surgery robotics company ForSight Robotics has raised $125 million in a Series B round led by Eclipse. The funding will be used to advance development of the company’s ORYOM platform, a robotic system designed to perform cataract surgery and treat other common eye diseases. The system aims to deliver more precise procedures, expand access to quality care, and reduce the physical burden on surgeons. ForSight’s first human clinical trials are expected to begin this year.

Founded in 2020 by Prof. Moshe Shoham, Dr. Daniel Glozman, and Dr. Joseph Nathan, ForSight is currently headquartered in Yokneam Illit and will soon relocate to Caesarea. The company has raised $195 million to date and employs 110 people in Israel.

In addition to Eclipse, the round included investment from a strategic corporate partner, Dr. Fred Moll, who is widely regarded as the “father of surgical robotics,” India’s Adani Group, Reiya Ventures, and other existing backers. The company has already conducted hundreds of successful preclinical procedures in animal trials and will soon begin robotic cataract surgeries in humans.

“We finalized the round while missiles were flying into Israel. Twenty percent of our team is in the reserves, we support them and their families deeply,” Natahn told Calcalist. “We’ve faced COVID, economic crises, and now war. Still, we secured backing from some of Silicon Valley’s largest funds in both our Series A and B. Our uniqueness is stronger than the challenges around us.”

Dr. Nathan emphasized that the round represents a strong vote of confidence from a key industry player “A strategic company in our space invested a substantial amount, but entered only as a financial partner, I’m not tied to them strategically. All funds go to the company and are not contingent on milestones.”

The new capital will help ForSight move through regulatory pathways, launch U.S. operations, and prepare for commercialisation. “I believe we’ll reach the market in the coming years once we secure all FDA approvals,” said Nathan.

“There’s no existing robotic solution in ophthalmology. We are reengineering eye surgery. Instead of a surgeon manually operating tools, they’ll sit at a console and guide robots to perform the procedure with far greater precision and comfort. Surgeons will be able to do more procedures with better ergonomics. Today, 66% of ophthalmic surgeons suffer from spinal injuries due to physical strain, our platform helps solve that.”

From a patient’s perspective, he added, “They know they’re getting the highest quality care.”

The global vision crisis, affecting over one billion people with preventable vision impairment and avoidable blindness, is exacerbated by a limited and declining ophthalmologist workforce. Worldwide, there are only 31.7 ophthalmologists and 14.1 cataract surgeons per million people. By 2035, the number of practicing ophthalmologists is expected to decline by 12%, while demand for eye care is projected to rise by 24%. Simultaneously, more than 600 million people suffer from cataracts, yet only 30 million receive surgical treatment. In the United States alone, just four million cataract surgeries are performed annually, underscoring the significant gap between patient need and available surgical capacity.

The ORYOM platform is designed to deliver highly precise and consistent ophthalmic procedures, starting with cataract surgery. Leveraging AI-based algorithms, advanced computer vision, and micro-mechanics, the robotic system offers exceptional dexterity and manoeuvrability, while also improving the surgeon’s ergonomic experience.

“Cataracts are part of aging, and rates are rising with obesity and diabetes. But many surgeons are retiring, and there’s not enough new talent entering the field,” Nathan noted. “This gap will only grow.”

Dr. Nathan calls the Series B one of the largest medical funding rounds in Israel in recent years, an exceptional feat in a turbulent time.

“We see ophthalmology as the next frontier in medical robotics, just like general surgery was before Intuitive Surgical revolutionized it with the da Vinci system. It’s a massive market with urgent global need.”

The company’s advisory board includes Dr. Fred Moll, the founder of Intuitive Surgical and the da Vinci surgical system, and Mr. Rony Abovitz, the founder of MAKO Surgical Corp. Dr. Fred Moll recently joined the company’s board of directors. Additionally, ForSight Robotics benefits from the expertise of a world-class clinical advisory board that includes Dr. David Chang, Dr. Vance Thompson, Prof. Boris Malyugin, Dr. Sam Garg, and Dr. Modi Naftali.