The 10-year memorandum of understanding between the United States and Israel, signed in 2016 and worth $38 billion, expires in 2028, and discussions about its successor are already underway.
This past January, Israel became the first country to sign a joint declaration with the United States on artificial intelligence and critical technologies.
In Congress, Section 224 of the House defense authorization bill would create a standing framework for joint development and co-production in missile defense, AI, autonomous systems, and cybersecurity. The direction is clear. What remains open is how broadly it will be applied.
Both governments have already recognized the value of cooperation and joint development. The opportunity now is to extend that approach beyond defense and create additional mechanisms for collaboration in civilian and dual-use technologies. That mechanism does not need to be invented.
The Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, BIRD, has been operating since 1977 as a government-to-government platform funded equally by both countries and designed to connect the American and Israeli innovation ecosystems for the benefit of both economies.
The record demonstrates the value of the model. Over its lifetime, it has supported more than 1,200 joint ventures, invested more than $450 million, and helped generate more than $10 billion in direct and indirect sales, most of them in the US.
The benefits flow in both directions. American companies gain access to Israeli technologies, research capabilities, and development teams. Israeli companies gain access to American market knowledge, manufacturing capacity, commercial infrastructure, and customers.
The products are developed and commercialized jointly rather than created in one country and simply purchased by the other.
BIRD is not the only possible mechanism for joint innovation, nor should every form of cooperation operate through a single institution.
Its importance to the current discussion is that it provides nearly five decades of evidence for a broader principle: governments can help companies with complementary capabilities find one another, share development risk, and bring technologies to market together.
That principle can be applied more widely.
Maintaining strong cooperation
Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, energy, water, food security, and advanced manufacturing are becoming central to economic resilience and international competitiveness. Many of the technologies developed in these fields have both civilian and security applications.
A broader framework could make it easier for companies and research institutions to identify partners, conduct joint testing, and move projects from research to commercial deployment. It could also support cooperation in regulation, manufacturing, and market access, where promising technologies often encounter their most significant barriers.
This does not require replacing or weakening existing defense cooperation. It requires ensuring that the broader relationship also includes clear and durable mechanisms for civilian and dual-use innovation.
The framework that follows the 2016 memorandum should therefore recognize joint technological development as an additional pillar of the relationship.
It should encourage co-development and co-production, attract private investment, and measure success through commercial outcomes such as products launched, markets entered, revenues generated, and long-term partnerships created.
It should also fund BIRD at a level that reflects its record and enables it to support more collaborations in fields of shared technological and economic importance. A platform that has demonstrated its ability to connect companies, attract private investment, and generate commercial activity should be equipped to address the scale of the opportunities now emerging.
Strong defense cooperation will remain essential. Alongside it, a broader commitment to joint innovation can help both countries develop the technologies, companies, and industries they will need in the decades ahead.
The writer is executive director of the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, BIRD.