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.

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.

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.

The Technion held a festive reception for 32 new faculty members who joined the university this year

Thirty-two new faculty members one third of them women, joined the Technion in the current academic year. The research fields represented by the new faculty are wide-ranging, and their diverse specializations reflect the future of science and technology at the global forefront. Among them are experts in quantum communication, AI and deep learning, mathematics and data science, among other fields. They include theorists and experimentalists, inventors, engineers, and, of course, many physicians.

In recent years, the Technion has emphasized incorporating arts and humanities into its curriculum, as well as expanding research in the Department of Humanities and Arts. As a result, the new faculty members include scholars whose work focuses on the history of science, the intersection between the philosophy of science and contemporary science, and even musical communication.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan welcomed the new faculty members and said:
“To understand the importance of the Technion in the development of the State of Israel, one must ask what the country would look like without the Technion, which was founded a quarter of a century before the state itself. I have no doubt that Israel would have looked completely different. Here at the Technion, the Start-Up Nation was born, but not just that – also many other important industries in the food, aeronautics, chemistry, defense, and other sectors were established here. From my broad perspective as President of the Technion, I am constantly exposed to the institution’s glorious legacy, a legacy that began in the early 20th century, when the idea of establishing a technological university in the Land of Israel was first conceived. Today, you are joining a long tradition of teaching and research, and I am already curious to see the mark you will leave on the world.”

חברי וחברות הסגל החדשים

“You are the future of the Technion as the world moves forward and new opportunities for research and education emerge – opportunities we cannot even imagine,” said Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, Vice President for Academic Affairs, to the new faculty members. “You are the future of the Technion when, amid all the technological bustle in the research laboratory and in the classroom, the human factor rises and continues to serve as the leading axis. You are the future of the Technion when challenges arrive at our doorstep that cannot be anticipated. You are the future of the Technion as it continues to lead science, industry, and society in the State of Israel and beyond, past the visible horizon. The future, yours and ours, is a shared future. Your part in this shared future is to succeed, simply to succeed. Our part is to provide you with the environment needed for success: a physical and research environment, and a sharp, open, inclusive, and respectful intellectual environment befitting a supportive academic community. An environment that will enable you to research and teach in your own way. An independent environment, free of external interference and foreign considerations, and one in which the values of our ethical code – pursuit of truth, integrity, responsibility, and freedom of research and expression – are realized without compromise. I am glad that we chose you to be part of our shared future, and I am especially glad that you chose us. I promise that we will do everything to be worthy of that choice.”

The new faculty members are

  • Schulich Faculty of Chemistry: Dr. Ron Tenne
  • Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering: Dr. Arad Lang, Dr. Arava Zohar
  • Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dr. Huaquan Ying, Dr. Nachman Malkiel, Dr. Rui Yao
  • Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences: Dr. Nadav Merlis, Dr. Yael Travis-Lumer, Dr. Or Sharir, Dr. Assaf Shocher
  • Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dr. Aviv Karnieli, Dr. Nicolas Wainstein, Dr. Eran Lustig
  • Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science: Dr. Oded Stein
  • Faculty of Mechanical Engineering: Dr. Majdi Gzal
  • Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Dr. Eddy Solomon, Dr. Shira Landau
  • Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning: Dr. Tamara Kerzhner, Assoc. Prof. Yael Alef, Dr. Ofer Berman, Dr. Hatzav Yaffe
  • Faculty of Mathematics: Dr. Yatir Benari Halevi, Dr. Alan Lew
  • Faculty of Physics: Prof. Julien Fuchs
  • Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Dr. Daria Pavlov Amiad, Dr. Michal Meir
  • TCE – Technion Computer Engineering Center: Dr. Yaniv David
  • Department of Humanities and Arts: Prof. Eitan Globerson, Dr. Assaf Weksler-Fleshner, Dr. Matityahu Yosef Boker, Associate Professor of Creative Arts Orit Wolf, Dr. Topaz Halperin

Good luck!

With the outbreak of the war, the Technion established an unprecedented support system that provided reserve-duty students with financial assistance, academic accommodations, tutoring, and emotional support

The Defense Minister’s Shield for 2025 was awarded to the Technion on Monday, December 29, in recognition of its outstanding support for military reservists. Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan and Vice President for Academic Affairs Prof. Oded Rabinovitch received the shield, which is granted to organizations and institutions that have demonstrated exceptional commitment to reserve-duty personnel. The award is intended to honor support for employees and students serving in the reserves, and to raise awareness of their contributions to society and the security of the state. The shield was presented to the Technion at the Reserve Forces Appreciation Ceremony, held in the presence of Defense Minister Israel Katz, the Chief of the General Staff of the IDF Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, and Chief Reserve Officer Brig. Gen. Benny Ben Ari.

From left to right: CEO of the Council for Higher Education Dr. Maya Lugasi Ben Hamo; the Chief of the General Staff of the IDF Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir; Defense Minister Israel Katz; Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan; Vice President for Academic Affairs Prof. Oded Rabinovitch; and Chief Reserve Officer Brig. Gen. Benny Ben Ari. (Photo: Elad Malka, Ministry of Defense)

The Technion delegation included senior management representatives and members of the academic and administrative staff, alongside students – both women and men – who have served hundreds of days in reserve duty since the outbreak of the Swords of Iron war, including officers, combat soldiers, and staff personnel.

Since the beginning of the war, thousands of Technion students – along with many members of the academic and administrative staff and teaching teams – have been called up for reserve duty under emergency order. More than 1,000 students served over 150 days of reserve duty in the past year, and over 500 served more than 250 days. Since the start of the war, the Technion has provided reserve-duty personnel with an extensive support system that includes academic accommodations, tutoring, personal mentoring, emotional support, and financial assistance—made possible with the help of the Technion’s friends, alumni, and supporters in Israel and around the world.

Executive Vice President and CEO of the Technion, Dr. Rafi Aviram; Vice President for Academic Affairs, Prof. Oded Rabinovitch; Technion President, Prof. Uri Sivan; and Dean of Students Prof. Guedi Capeluto, with students at the ceremony

“We are happy and proud to receive this honor,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “Since its founding, the Technion has acted out of a sense of national mission and historical responsibility to Israeli society, its security, and its economy. Receiving the Defense Minister’s Shield is official recognition of the Technion’s commitment to the reservists of the Technion family, of whom we are immensely proud. Thousands of students and academic and administrative staff reported for duty on October 7, and many have since served hundreds of days in reserve duty. We owe them an enormous debt and are doing everything in our power to ease their daily lives – at work and in their studies – and to support them and their families. It is a great privilege.”

The Technion delegation with the Chief of the General Staff of the IDF Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir

Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, Vice President for Academic Affairs, who served throughout the war as the Senior Vice President to the Technion President, said: “Our deep commitment to students serving in the reserves is embedded in the very essence of the Technion. Just as the students stepped forward to serve, the entire Technion community stepped forward for them and did everything possible to ensure their success. We set ourselves the goal of reaching every reservist and providing whatever assistance was needed, while reducing dropout rates to nearly zero. We are proud of our students and of the hundreds of Technion women and men who did everything they could to ensure their success, even amid the complex reality imposed on us by the war.”

The Technion delegation before the ceremony

Pioneering technology developed at the Technion enables the production of drugs inside the body using live bacteria

Technion researchers have developed an innovative approach that allows drugs to be produced inside the human body. The new technology, developed at the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, uses live bacteria that manufacture the therapeutic substance. The researchers’ findings were recently published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

The research was led by Professor Boaz Mizrahi, Dr. Adi Gross, and Ph.D. student Caroline Hali Alperovitz. According to Prof. Mizrahi, “We are used to thinking that to introduce a drug into the body, it must be manufactured in a factory – sometimes on another continent – then formulated and finally administered to the patient via a capsule or an injection. Our paper describes a new paradigm for both drug production and consumption.”

Prof. Boaz Mizrahi
Dr. Adi Gross
Caroline Hali Alperovitz

This new paradigm is based on using harmless bacteria modified to produce and secrete the desired drug inside the body. These bacteria are introduced directly into the affected organ, where they manufacture and release the drug locally, eliminating the need for swallowing or injecting additional substances.

The technology offers several key advantages. First, the drug is always fresh, as it is used immediately after being produced – a major benefit for protein-based drugs and molecules sensitive to oxidation. Second, the drug’s bioavailability is higher due to the proximity of the “factory” to the “consumer,” reducing side effects caused by drug degradation during transport in the body. Third, because the bacteria replicate within the tissue, a single “dose” of bacteria may be sufficient for weeks, lowering treatment costs.

In their study, the Technion researchers used the non-pathogenic bacterium Bacillus paralicheniformis, which they modified to produce an important protein called γ-PGA. This protein plays a crucial role in healing severe wounds, improving skin appearance, and reducing inflammation.

באיור: הקונספט החדש – חיידק (בתכלת) המשמש מפעל תרופות המייצר את החומר הפעיל באיבר המטרה (העור)
Illustration: The new concept — a bacterium (in light blue) serving as a miniature drug factory that produces the active compound in the target organ (the skin).

To deliver the bacteria into the body safely and painlessly, the researchers developed a microneedle patch. When applied to the skin, the tiny needles penetrate the dermal layer (dermis) without harming nerves or blood vessels. Contact with the dermis causes the microneedles to dissolve, releasing the bacteria and allowing them to function as a “smart biological factory” that produces the desired drug from available raw materials. Experiments confirmed the process works effectively, and the team optimized it with a nutrient medium providing the bacteria with essential materials. Detailed chemical analysis verified that the bacteria indeed produced a pure, active therapeutic substance.

To test the technology’s safety, the researchers applied the system to mice and found that their skin remained healthy, with the patch dissolving within just two hours, showing no signs of inflammation or tissue trauma.

“Large biological molecules and proteins are now used to treat a wide range of chronic and acute diseases,” explained Prof. Mizrahi. “Therefore, the innovative approach we developed could revolutionize the field of pharmaceuticals — instead of injections and pills, we could treat patients with a ‘living’ system that minimizes the need to repeatedly administer drugs, as is customary today.”

The research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and by the Russell Berrie Nano-technology Institute of the Technion.

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.”

Pigs have long carried a bad reputation. They are often described as dirty, greedy animals that eat everything in sight and spend their days lying around. In reality, none of these stereotypes are true. Pigs are intelligent, have a highly developed sense of smell and like to stay clean. They often roll in mud not because of laziness but to cool down and protect themselves from parasites.

But there is another, far more important fact about pigs: they are now at the center of a medical revolution that could transform the future of organ transplantation. With demand for donor organs vastly outpacing supply, researchers are turning to genetically engineered pigs as potential life-saving sources of hearts, kidneys, livers and even lungs.

חזירים
(Photo: Shutterstock)

The idea is not based on vague similarity to humans but on precise genetic engineering. By shutting off certain pig genes, such as the one that produces a sugar molecule called alpha-gal, and adding human genes, scientists can make pig organs appear more “human” to the immune system, reducing the risk of immediate rejection.

A global shortage

The need is urgent. More than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for an organ transplant, most of them for kidneys, and thousands die each year before a donor is found. Israel faces a similar shortage. According to Prof. Mordechai Kramer, head of the lung transplant unit at Rabin Medical Center (Beilinson Hospital), only about 40 lung transplants are performed each year in Israel, while some 180 patients remain on the waiting list. “People die while waiting,” Kramer said. “And that’s just lungs. What about all the other organs?”

Clinical trials approved in the US

In recent months, two milestones have made headlines. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration for the first time approved large-scale clinical trials of pig organ transplants in humans. The biotech company eGenesis, a leader in the field, is set to begin pig kidney transplants this year, aiming to treat dozens of patients in a monitored trial. The step marks a shift from rare “compassionate use” cases to systematic research with broad patient groups.

The key lies in the blood vessels that connect directly with human circulation. In pigs, the sugar alpha-gal on the surface of cells triggers an immediate, destructive immune response. Using CRISPR gene-editing tools, companies disable this gene and add human genetic material to soften the body’s attack, allowing the organ to survive longer.

A pig lung that breathed inside a human body

Meanwhile, in China, doctors achieved a stunning breakthrough in May 2024 by transplanting a genetically engineered pig lung into a brain-dead 39-year-old man. The lung functioned for nine days before doctors ended the trial. Crucially, it did not trigger immediate rejection. “The great achievement is that hyper-acute rejection did not occur,” said Dr. Liran Levy, head of the lung transplant program at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv.

Lungs are among the most complex organs to transplant because of their constant exposure to air and microbes, making them highly likely to trigger immune responses. That a pig lung could function for more than a week inside a human body offers new hope.

Pig livers and kidneys

Other recent experiments also show progress. In March 2025, researchers in China reported that a genetically modified pig liver survived for 10 days inside a brain-dead patient, producing bile and proteins while maintaining blood flow. In April 2025, doctors in New York announced that Tuanna Looney, a 54-year-old Alabama woman, had lived for 130 days with a pig kidney — the longest period ever recorded.

“She had been on dialysis since 2016 and was not eligible for a human kidney transplant,” said Prof. Eytan Mor, director of kidney transplants at Sheba Medical Center. “The fact that a pig kidney survived more than four months is remarkable. If we reach the point where it can last five years, that would be a giant leap for medicine.”

Israeli contributions

Israel has also played a role in advancing the field. In 2021, a team at Beilinson Hospital developed a method of stripping pig blood vessels and coating them with human cells taken from placentas. The approach makes the organ’s blood vessel lining look human to the immune system, complementing CRISPR-based genetic editing.

“This point of contact between the organ and human blood is critical,” said the researchers. “If we can reduce the immune system’s recognition of the organ as foreign, we can extend survival.”

Ethics and Jewish law

For many Jews, the use of pigs raises cultural and religious questions. But Prof. Kramer emphasized that Jewish law permits the use of pig organs to save lives. “There’s no prohibition here. This is about pikuach nefesh — saving a life. Even today, heart valves from pigs are used in patients. I cannot imagine any rabbi forbidding the use of a pig organ if it means saving someone.”

Beyond pigs: bioprinting and stem cells

At the same time, researchers are exploring other frontiers. At the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Prof. Shulamit Levenberg leads Israel’s first center for 3D bioprinting, which develops tissue from stem cells. “We are not yet able to print a fully functional lung that can oxygenate blood,” she said, “but the technology is advancing. For now, transplants from animals are closer to clinical use than 3D-printed organs.”

Still, scientists see the fields converging. Some are working on “universal” human stem cells for bioprinting, while others are engineering pigs to reduce rejection. The ultimate goal is to produce safe, reliable organs on demand.

Last Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of Excel, one of the most powerful and influential tools ever created by the global software industry. When Microsoft’s now-legendary spreadsheet program was born — originally for Apple’s rival Macintosh computer — it wasn’t the first of its kind. Its predecessor, Lotus 1-2-3, still dominated the market.

What began as a simple, focused tool for accountants and bookkeepers evolved into a global powerhouse that helped drive the personal computing revolution. From students to CEOs, from startups to governments — Excel is now used by some 800 million people worldwide.

What is less known is that a decisive share of this phenomenal success — which has earned Microsoft billions over the years — belongs to hundreds of engineers in Excel’s Israeli development center in Herzliya, and to the two people who lead it: Tamar Tzruya Bar-Zakai, 54, and Yair Helman, 56. The pair, among Microsoft’s longest-serving and most senior executives (Helman has been with the company for 28 years, Tzruya for “only” 16), both live in Even Yehuda and have played a key role in transforming Excel — especially over the past decade — from a technical, even dull spreadsheet into a dynamic online platform now undergoing a revolution through artificial intelligence.

Yair Helman, who studied computer engineering at the Technion, now leads Excel’s Core Engineering team at Microsoft’s Israeli development centre.