Israel Establishes Three Industry-Academia Consortia to Jump-Start Innovation; Including Quantum Communications Consortium

(TheTimesOfIsrael) Israel is seeking to jump-start innovation in autonomous vehicles, quantum technologies and advanced materials by getting scientists and industry experts to bring their best ideas out into the market. To do this, the Israel Innovation Authority has approved the establishment of three research and development industry-academia consortia that will receive funding totaling NIS 150 million ($43 million) over three years.
The Quantum communications consortium will aim to improve quantum encryption while cutting costs. The consortium will focus on research and development of quantum communication technologies across three categories: communication systems for server farms; transferring data from a single communication channel to a network; and developing a secure communication system for transmitting encryption keys.
Companies including Mellanox Techlonogies Ltd. and OpSys-Tech, a maker of Lidar and fiber-optics technology, will be part of this consortium. They will be joined by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and other institutions.
Aviv Zeevi, head of the technological infrastructure division at the authority, explained The initiative seeks to anticipate “the technology that will fuel Israel’s growth engines in 5-7 years’ time,” he said.