http://bit.ly/3HFNQb3
*Irrespective of Israel’s wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, Intel, the semiconductor giant, confirmed a $25 billion investment in Israel, leveraging Israel’s brain power, which has enhanced Intel’s competitiveness in the global market. Over the last 50 years, Intel has invested over $50 billion in Israel, establishing 4 research and development centers, despite the potential for wars and actual wars and terrorism. Intel will expand its Israeli chip factory, in order to diversify its manufacturing potential amid a chip arms race (New York Times, December 27, 2023).
*Challenged by a unique environment – top heavy on terrorism and war, but low on natural resources and rainfall – Israel has bolstered its do-or-die state of mind, with defiance of odds, risk-taking, frontier, pioneering, optimism, patriotism, can-do and out-of-the-box mentality. This has yielded a robust flow of game-changing commercial, defense and dual-use technologies.
*Israel entered the current wars with positive economic indicators, such as debt-to-GDP ratio in the low ‘60% (compared with 123% in the US) and an all-time high foreign exchange reserves of $200 billion.
*Intel’s $25 billion investment in Israel is driven by the Israel’s unique competitive edge, as detailed in the following October 23, 2023 report by the St. Louis-based Stifel Investment Bank ($390BN asset management):
“We believe that there are several key factors supporting the resilience of the Israeli market in the face of conflict, and the confidence of large multinational companies making large acquisitions in Israel, including during wars.
“Some of those key factors include: