ILA offers Nvidia 14 sites for new R&D campus

In response to Nvidia’s request for information (RFI) to buy a plot of land, the Israel Land Authority (ILA) has in a major move offered the US tech giant, 14 sites that would be suitable for the company to build its R&D campus, sources close to the matter have told “Globes.”

Nvidia said in the announcement it made at the beginning of this month that it is seeking land in northern Israel between 70 and 120 dunams in area (17.5-30 acres), with construction rights to build 80,000-180,000 square meters. This is a huge construction project, reflecting the largest-ever in Israel’s tech industry, as well as for the authorities in the region.

ILA has offered Nvidia a range of options for suitable land, in the region in which Nvidia defined its search area – between Zikhron Yaakov, Migdal HaEmek, Kiryat Ata and Haifa. “Globes” has learned that among the authorities within whose jurisdiction the land is being offered are Akko, Yokneam, Nof HaGalil, Afula and the Megiddo Regional Council. It can be assumed that these are sites in existing industrial zones, including the Mevo Carmel Industrial Zone (Megiddo), the Zipporit Industrial Park (Nof HaGalil), Ofer Park in Yokneam and the industrial zone in Afula.

The preferred location, according to experts, due to its high suitability for Nvidia’s requirements, is the Mevo Carmel Park, which is very close to the company’s Israel headquarters in Yokneam, near Road 6. It has large land reserves, low taxation, and, in its planned expansion, proximity to a high-voltage line and a private power plant.

According to industry sources, signs indicate that Nvidia may be exploring the option of purchasing land at several sites and not just one.

Tender exempt land

The various sites being offered by the ILA to Nvidia for building its R&D campus will be exempt from a tender process. This is a procedure that the ILA regularly carries, which in practice it means a significant benefit for Nvidia, certainly when it comes to land of the size that the tech giant is looking for. This benefit will be one of many that the company will receive in order to build the new center.

Providing land exempt from a tender, (which is usually granted in national priority areas), eliminates the need for Nvidia to compete with others for the land it wants to buy. The price of the land is set in advance, according to certain criteria, and not according to the highest bid, as is the case in regular public tenders, which result in final bids that are higher than the original land value. So in most cases, exemption from a tender means a significantly lower price.

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For example, take a tender for 3.9 dunam of land in the industrial area of Nof HaGalil (an industrial area within the city, not the Zipporit Industrial Park), which closed in March 2025. 11 bids were submitted for the land, and it was successfully marketed for NIS 8.8 million, compared with the assessment of NIS 3.9 million – more than double.

The very fact that Nvidia is looking for a new location in the northern region, where many locations are defined as national priority areas, will earn it a very large discount. In National Priority Area B, which is included in the search area, Nvidia will pay only 51% of the land value but only for the expansion of the center. When building a new center, it will have to pay full lease fees.

Either way, these benefits could easily ensure that the cost of purchasing the land will amount to NIS 400 million at most, according to estimates.

There is another major incentive that Nvidia can benefit from, within the framework of the Law for Encouragement of Capital Investments: a company that is defined as a preferred company – especially if its operations are in the periphery – can benefit from a reduced corporate tax, which will be 16% instead of 23%, and in Development Zone A, which is actually a national priority zone, it will benefit from a tax of only 7.5%. However, a Globes investigation finds that Nvidia could benefit from an even more significant benefit: if it meets the criteria for recognition as a “specially preferred technology enterprise”, corporate tax could drop to 5%.

It seems Nvidia does meet the main criteria for recognition as a preferred technology enterprise. One criterion is annual consolidated revenue higher than NIS 10 billion (Nvidia’s revenue in the first quarter of 2025 was $44.1 billion). Salaries of 20% of the company’s employees must be classified as R&D expenses, or the plant must employ at least 200 R&D employees. Since the company’s new site is for a development center, it will easily be able to meet this criterion too.

The local authorities are waiting in line

Many local authorities are competing to house Nvidia’s new campus. Nvidia Israel senior country director Nati Amsterdam said days after the RFI was published that the company had received inquiries from heads of authorities “from Dan to Eilat.” Globes has learned that the Sagi 2000 industrial zone in the Jezreel Valley and Tziporit near Nof HaGalil, as well as the Afula Municipality, have also submitted documents to Nvidia. Migdal HaEmek Municipality was quick to say that Mayor Yaki Ben Chaim had already begun talks with representatives of the company.

Even further north, in areas beyond Nvidia’s search area, efforts are being made to attract the company. Safed Mayor Yossi Kakon sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking him to work to bring Nvidia’s campus to the city. Eighteen heads of authorities in the Eastern Galilee cluster announced that they were working together to attract the company to the Tzahar industrial zone near Rosh Pina and Hatzor HaGlilit. Head of the Mate Asher regional council and chairman of the Forum of Conflict Line Settlements, Moshe Davidovich, said that bringing Nvidia to the conflict line area would be “more important than anything else that has been here in the past decade and will be here in the next 20 years.”

The very idea of housing Nvidia in a particular city or region incentivizes the authority to offer the tech giant sweeping benefits. Such benefits can include a large discount on local authority taxes (arnona), bureaucratic relief to shorten processes for the company, assistance in establishing necessary infrastructure, and even financial grants according to the authority’s capabilities. For example, in the past, the Afula Municipality offered a 50% discount on local taxes for three years, to tech companies that would move their headquarters there.

From the outside, this is a huge package of benefits for the company, which could reflect savings of billions of shekels. The benefit to the Israeli economy from the establishment of the new center may be even greater.

Nvidia currently has about 5,000 employees in five development centers in Israel. Construction of the new, particularly large center, could boost the number of company employees to about 10,000 by the end of the decade, making it one of the largest employers in Israel’s tech sector – a huge boost for the area where the new campus is built as well as the entire Israeli economy.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on July 23, 2025.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.