The New Pioneers: Growing Israel’s AI Advantage
The New Pioneers: Growing Israel’s AI Advantage
Co-hosted by AI21 & Vintage Investment Partners | Tuesday, 8.9.26, 17:00, Tel Aviv
An invite-only evening for ~150 founders, VCs, institutional investors and senior ecosystem players: a candid conversation about Israel's place in the AI era: where it can lead, what capabilities it must build, and how its global connections can turn ambition into lasting advantage.
See you there, Campari and Jaffa orange in hand - an homage to our previous famous export - for an open, reflective conversation about the next one: intelligence.
17:00-18:15 | Food, drinks, and networking.
18:15-18:30 | Israel’s AI Opportunity
A joint opening from Vintage Investment Partners and AI21 on the global technology and investment landscape and what it means for Israel’s position in the AI race.
Ori Goshen, Co-Founder and CEO, AI21 Labs
Asaf Horesh, Co-Managing Partner, Vintage Investment Partners
18:30-18:50 | Fireside: An Unfiltered Read From Silicon Valley on the AI Race
Which bets is Silicon Valley making across capital, compute, and talent? How have governments entered the race, and how does Israel look from that vantage point?
A high-profile General Partner, a16z
Interviewed by Abe Finkelstien, Co-Managing Partner, Vintage Investment Partners
18:50-19:10 | Fireside: The Next Frontier: Israel’s Race to Lead
An open conversation with one of Israeli technology’s defining pioneers about where Israel stands today and what it will take to lead the next era.
Eyal Waldman, Founder and former CEO, Mellanox Technologies
Interviewed by Prof. Yoav Shoham, Co-Founder, AI21 Labs
19:10-19:30 | Panel 1: The Stack Beneath: Powering the AI Era
A look at the foundations of the AI economy: models, chips, data centers, energy, and talent. The conversation will explore whether open-source models are a competitive weapon or a security threat, why infrastructure investment is racing ahead of revenue, how energy is becoming the industry’s next major constraint, and where Israeli talent can build a genuine advantage.
Ori Goshen, Co-Founder and CEO, AI21 Labs
Alon Yariv, VP Business Development, Crusoe; former Co-Founder and CEO, Atero
Omri Geller, VP and GM, NVIDIA; former Co-Founder and CEO, Run
Moderated by Ilan Leiferman, Chief Value Officer, Vintage Investment Partners
19:30-19:50 | Panel 2: The Business on Top: Cost, Pricing and Moat in the AI Era
As inference costs rise with usage, agents challenge per-seat pricing, and a single model release can erase an entire category, what makes an AI business defensible? The panel will examine where value will ultimately accrue across the stack and how companies built in Israel can capture it.
Eilon Reshef, Co-Founder and CPO, Gong
Alon Schindel, VP of AI and Threat Research, Wiz
Guy Nadav, Director of Machine Learning and AI and Country Lead, Booking
Moderated by Iren Reznikov, Partner, Vintage Investment Partners
19:50-20:30 | Drinks