Shake-up in Israeli high-tech: Intel closes department and fires all employees
The chip giant has made a dramatic decision to close the optimization and AI agents group at its research labs in the country, fire senior developers, and halt important operations.
While global tech giants are engaged in a frantic arms race and are recruiting every available AI developer, chip giant Intel is choosing to act in the opposite direction. The company has decided to close the optimization and AI agents group at its research labs in Israel and fire the 13 senior researchers and developers who comprised it, effectively closing the sought-after department in Israel.
The internal reasoning given for the closure of the activity revolves around organizational and geographical considerations, while the company refrains from commenting officially. This is according to the report today (Wednesday) in "Globes". The dramatic move comes against the backdrop of the financial efficiency plan of CEO Lip-Bu Tan, which includes deep cuts in management layers and halving the number of vice presidents in the company from 450 to only about 200.
The closure of the unit joins the reduction of about a quarter of Intel's workforce in Israel in recent years, alongside the freezing of the expansion of local plants and the shifting of resources to India, the USA, and Ireland.
The closure of the local team, which was led by Moshe Wasserblat, caused shock and wonder among industry executives at companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Hugging Face. During a decade of activity, the Israeli group was credited with over 50 academic papers, led breakthroughs in reducing computing costs and accelerating inference times, and developed advanced AI infrastructures that received great international appreciation.
Despite the layoff blow focused on the research team, sources close to the company note that Intel is still recruiting employees for more than 100 other open positions in Israel. However, the abandonment of such a central applied research arm raises difficult questions regarding the company's technological roadmap.
