Israel’s New AI Directorate Is an Opening for the U.S.

On the sidelines of the Pax Silica Summit hosted by Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth Jacob Helberg, Israel unveiled the strategy for its new national AI directorate. 

The announcement followed the Israeli cabinet’s June 16 decision approving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national AI program, aimed at making Israel “an AI superpower, just as we did with cyber.” The United States should respond to this initiative by deepening AI cooperation with Israel, one of Washington’s most capable partners.

Integrating Cyber and AI

At an event at the Israeli Embassy in Washington attended by FDD, IDF Brig. Gen. (Res.) Erez Askal, who leads the AI directorate, laid out priorities that track Israel’s existing strengths. 

A former commander of Unit 9900, Israel’s elite visual intelligence and geospatial unit, and a former head of the Digital Transformation Directorate within the IDF, Askal outlined a concentrated national effort. The focus is on four specialized domains where Israel either intends to invest, such as AI ethics and AI that interacts with the physical world, or where Israel already holds a distinct edge, like Cyber AI and advanced mitigation of deepfake threats.

Askal split the mission into two tracks: ensuring that AI models are safe to use (security for AI) and leveraging AI to defend networks against attacks (AI for cyber). Both tracks are urgently relevant in Washington right now. 

The Trump administration has begun rolling out voluntary but formal pre-deployment review infrastructure. This grants the federal government a 30-day window to assess new models before public release. 

However, that framework only works if the evaluators can actually identify what makes a model dangerous. A partner directorate with dedicated capacity to study adversarial AI — including how models can be manipulated, poisoned, or turned against the networks they are intended to protect — is exactly the kind of assistance the U.S. needs as it builds out that infrastructure.

Israel is also prioritizing a dedicated push to counter deepfakes. Over the past year, Iran flooded social media platforms with hundreds of unique AI-generated deepfakes to shape war narratives, push disinformation abroad, and coalesce domestic support in favor of the Tehran regime. As the challenge of reliably detecting AI-generated fabrications grows harder, partnering with a directorate institutionally dedicated to studying and combating this particular threat becomes a strategic asset, not just a goodwill gesture.

Advancing U.S.-Israel Shared AI Capabilities

Congress and the Trump administration have ready vehicles to advance the cooperation that Israel’s AI Directorate is now formally inviting. 

Two bipartisan amendments under consideration for this year’s National Defense Authorization Act would formalize that relationship: one authorizing the Defense Department to conduct joint AI and quantum research with Israel, potentially through the existing Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) framework, and a second directing the State Department to establish a U.S.-Israel AI Center on American soil. Lawmakers should support both amendments.

They should also reinvest in an institution that already works. The BIRD Foundation, established by the U.S. and Israeli governments in 1977, has backed approximately 1,200 joint projects that have generated more than $10 billion in revenues — all without taking equity, and recouping funds only when products reach the market.

BIRD has since expanded to include dedicated programs in cybersecurity and energy. Funding and expanding a dedicated AI track would give U.S. and Israeli firms a proven, low-friction channel to build the trusted-technology ecosystem that Pax Silica envisions — and ensure the two countries shape the AI era together rather than apart.

Leah Siskind is director of impact and an AI research fellow for the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Leah and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.