Astera Labs announced the opening of a new research and development center in Israel, with facilities in Tel Aviv and Haifa, on February 9 2026. The move expands the company’s engineering footprint into a region renowned for semiconductor talent and positions Astera to accelerate the development of next‑generation AI connectivity fabrics that address memory bottlenecks in training and inference workloads.
The center is led by Guy Azrad, senior vice president of engineering and general manager of Astera Labs Israel, and supported by Ido Bukspan, vice president of ASIC engineering. Azrad brings experience from Google and Marvell, while Bukspan’s background includes Mellanox, NVIDIA, and a former CEO role at Pliops, giving the team deep expertise in silicon, software, and system design for AI fabrics.
By establishing the Israel hub, Astera aims to tap the country’s world‑class engineering talent and strengthen ties with hyperscalers. The center will focus on full chip design flows—from architecture through production—while also developing software and system solutions for high‑bandwidth AI workloads. This expansion is intended to accelerate the company’s strategy to own the AI rack’s connectivity layer and to compete more effectively against players such as Nvidia and Broadcom.
Astera plans to collaborate with Israeli universities and the local venture ecosystem to further its R&D efforts. The company’s leadership highlighted the region’s history of networking innovation and expressed confidence that the new center will elevate its AI connectivity portfolio and support the growing adoption of its Intelligent Connectivity Platform.
"We're building an engineering team with a strong focus on execution, covering hardware, silicon, and software solutions, to support the growing adoption of Astera Labs' Intelligent Connectivity Platform," Azrad said. Bukspan added, "Israel has been defining networking innovation for decades, and together we're taking AI connectivity to the next level."
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