What if the future of AI isn’t just about faster chips - but about how people, teams, and entire countries will work once AI operates at massive scale?

In this episode of IsraelTech, Yoel Israel sits down with Boaz Touitou, CTO of Impala AI, for a wide-ranging conversation that moves far beyond GPUs and hardware limits.

We dive into:
- Impala AI’s focus and why compute is the limiting factor
- Training vs. test-time scaling and what changes at massive run counts
- The GPU race and why new hardware overtakes the old instantly
- What AI-first companies look like in practice
- Employees guiding AI systems as part of their daily workflow
- AI at national scale - from codebases to continuous video feeds
- Why humans and AI aren’t as different as we assume
- Self-play and reinforcement learning as drivers of rapid improvement
- A landscape where knowledge is open and compute is the main hurdle

Boaz offers a grounded, expansive view on where AI is headed - not just as a technology, but as a force reshaping work, responsibility, and the structure of modern organizations.

Shorts of the Week

Managing a global team shouldn’t feel impossible ft. Yaron Lavi, CTO of Deel

Some people stumble into entrepreneurship. Adi Levanon of Selah Ventures grew up surrounded by it.

Sometimes the smartest career leap isn’t to another company, it's a desk over. ft. Gil Shai

This Week in Israeli Tech News

1. Israel’s Defense-Tech Startups Break Through $1B in 2025 Investment, Marking a Historic Surge in Global Demand

   Israel’s defense-tech ecosystem, powered by startups working closely with MAFAT, has crossed $1 billion in funding, acquisitions, and strategic transactions in 2025, outpacing the combined totals of all previous years.

   Major activity this year included:

   - Ondas Holdings contributing nearly $400M through multiple acquisitions, including its $225M purchase of anti-drone company Sentrycs.

   - Heven becoming Israel’s first defense-tech unicorn.

   - Classiq securing $110M to expand its quantum development software.

   - Kela raising close to $100M to scale its open-architecture military integration platform, with backing from Sequoia, Lux Capital, and IQT.

   - UVision acquiring SpearUAV and landing a landmark $982M U.S. Army program for its Hero series loitering munitions.

   This surge reflects accelerated global defense spending, operational demand, and Israel’s growing role as a hub for deployable, battlefield-validated innovation.

   

2. Quantum Art Secures $100M to Scale Multi-Core Quantum Computing

   With Dr. Tal David and Dr. Amit Ben-Kish at the helm, Quantum Art is advancing its trapped-ion architecture toward a 1,000-qubit commercial system and a third-generation platform targeting thousands more. The company’s rapid technical milestones and global expansion plans position it as one of Israel’s most ambitious deep-tech efforts to date.

3. Prime Security Raises $20M to Launch the First Agentic Security Architect

   Founded by Michael Nov, Prime is redefining modern product security by embedding autonomous AI agents directly into engineering workflows. Its platform performs continuous, design-stage security reviews, giving teams near-total coverage while cutting manual effort dramatically. The company is already working with major enterprises like PayPal, Qualtrics, Bumble, and Redis.

4. Parametrix Raises $27M to Expand AI-Driven Digital Downtime Insurance

   Co-founders Jonathan Hatzor and Nir Perry are building the insurance market’s first parametric platform for cloud, data center, and AI infrastructure downtime. Backed by more than 20 Lloyd’s syndicates, Parametrix continuously analyzes over one billion performance data points monthly to deliver fast, data-driven payouts when critical digital services fail.

5. Safebooks AI Raises $15M to Bring Agentic Revenue Integrity to Enterprise Finance

   Led by Ahikam Kaufman, Safebooks introduces ARI - an agentic automation layer that continuously validates revenue data across ERP, CRM, billing systems, and documents. Already monitoring $40B+ in financial flows, the platform turns revenue assurance into a proactive, real-time control for finance teams.

6. Matrix & Magic Merger Creates a New Global IT Powerhouse

   Matrix CEO Moti Gutman and Magic/Formula Systems CEO Guy Bernstein are driving a strategic merger expected to create the 8th largest IT services company in the U.S. and 3rd largest in Europe, with a combined valuation of ~$3.5B. The move strengthens cloud, professional services, and international expansion efforts, especially in the U.S.

Culture Corner

Special Coverage:

Israel's Foreign Ministry says an Israeli citizen was killed and another injured in the deadly shooting in Sydney, Australia. During the Bondi Beach celebration "Chanukah by the Sea,” a father-son terrorist duo killed 15 people and injured more than 40, with a dozen of them in critical condition. The attackers, aged 50 and 24, began shooting into a sea of baby carriages, kids and families from a pedestrian bridge above the crowd, causing panic as people fled into the water or took cover under picnic tables. Among the victims were Chabad emissary Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman, and 10-year-old Matilda Britvan. The incident, classified as a terrorist attack, is one of the largest assaults on Jews outside Israel in recent years. Amid the chaos, Ahmed al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old Sydney fruit shop owner, bravely disarmed one of the shooters by emerging from between parked cars and wrapping his arms around the man, grabbing hold of the long-barreled weapon. Ahmed was shot and wounded in the process. Authorities later found improvised explosive devices in the attackers' vehicle, which were safely defused, while one gunman was killed by police and the other was captured.

Click here to listen to the special report and hear some words of strength to help move us forward.

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