The Prime Minister's Office on Sunday announced the new appointment of Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Erez Askal has been appointed as the first-ever head of a new National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Directorate within the PMO.
According to the PMO, "The establishment of the Directorate, which has been led and initiated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is intended to transform the State of Israel into a global AI superpower."
Further, "the National Directorate will lead the formulation and implementation of the national strategy in the field, serving as a central arm for promoting innovation, regulation, infrastructure, and research, while strengthening Israel's status in the international arena."
"The Directorate will formulate the national plan for accelerating AI, while providing professional guidance and consultation to government ministries and auxiliary units on regulatory matters," said the PMO.
All of the above items are relatively similar to the announcement of a new cyber directorate within the PMO announced by Netanyahu in 2014.
Multi-year battle
That directorate got into a multi-year battle with the Shin Bet over who was responsible for different aspects of Israel's cyber defense.
It was unclear if the new AI directorate would lead to a new battle with the cyber directorate, which has been responsible for most artificial intelligence issues to date.
The cyber bureau was headed by Eviatar Metania until 2016, when it expanded from a bureau dealing with general strategy to becoming a large operational entity with hundreds of employees under Buky Carmeli from 2016-2018.
Yigal Unna led the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) from 2018-2022, greatly increasing its cyber defense capabilities within both the private sector and public sector, sometimes injecting itself directly into a critical company's cyber incident response.
Gaby Portnoy led the INCD from 2022 until March of this year, when Yossi Karadi took over.
During Portnoy's era, INCD significantly increased its global cyber cooperation and also succeeded in convincing many private sector companies to voluntarily raise their cyber defense standards.
Eventually, it was decided that the Shin Bet handled specific national security cyber defense priorities and the INCD handled the country's wider cyber defense, especially in the civilian sector.
Despite that division, which helped the INCD grow exponentially, the INCD has failed now for over a decade to pass legislation that would permanently enshrine its authorities, especially regarding intervening with private sector companies, into law.
It is far from clear that the IA directorate will succeed in passing regulations when its predecessor in cyber still has had limited success in solidifying new laws, only getting government endorsement for regulations which can be easily changed.
With the INCD's authorities still ambiguous in the legal sphere, there is little to prevent a conflict between the cyber and AI directorates, especially as the AI directorate will be taking away both responsibility for AI, and will at least indirectly interfere with how AI impacts Israel's cyber defenses.
Despite these concerns, a spokeswoman for the INCD said that the two directorates would partner very closely "to ensure that Israel remains a cyber powerhouse."
The PMO message also said that the "Directorate will also work to establish advanced infrastructure, including energy and research complexes for AI, and to advance 'supercomputing' capabilities under Israeli sovereignty."
Questioned about whether the supercomputing aspects would also include quantum computing, which to date has been handled by a mix of the Defense Ministry and the Innovation Authority, the PMO had not responded at press time.
Moreover, the PMO stated in its press release that, "the National Directorate will coordinate and promote international cooperation, as part of the effort to ensure Israel's place at the global forefront of the AI field."
According to the PMO, Askal "brings with him rich experience from the defense establishment, including as Head of the Digital Transformation Directorate in the C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate, Commander of the Visual Intelligence Unit 9900, and in intelligence roles in the Air Force and the Research Division of the Military Intelligence Directorate."
A top former cyber official said that if the two divisions, the cyber and the AI, worked together well, they would multiply each other's power. The AI division can help with supercomputers, data, and algorithms, whereas the cyber division will continue broader digital defenses.