America’s Best Bet for a Secure AI Base Is Israel’s Negev

The U.S. is looking at sites in the Jewish state, which is a superpower in all areas of the technology.

By Michael Doran and Zineb Riboua

This piece was originally published in the Wall Street Journal

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The U.S. has launched a new phase in the competition with China over artificial intelligence. On April 24, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned U.S. embassies worldwide that Chinese companies, including AI firm DeepSeek, are waging a state-backed campaign to steal advanced American technology.

The warning is necessary, but defensive measures alone won’t secure American leadership. Success demands an offensive strategy: reshaping the competition through AI alliances hardened against Chinese espionage.

One promising area for such collaboration is in Israel’s Negev Desert. According to American and Israeli officials, the two countries are discussing a joint initiative there, which the Israelis call Project Spire. The plan is for an AI base that has the security of an American military installation and the creative output of a Silicon Valley hub.

The U.S. is evaluating three Israeli-proposed sites in the western Negev, where Israel is prepared to grant a long-term lease for American use. The base would be home to research and development, large-scale server infrastructure, and energy systems to meet the enormous demands of AI training and deployment. Engineers would design chips, build models and run them on site inside a secure perimeter. The base would also house advanced chip fabrication, thus reducing dependence on semiconductor production in exposed regions like Taiwan.