Be’er Sheva Prepares to Be the New Israeli Silicon Valley

The launching of the CyberSpark national cyber complex in Be’er Sheva this week prepares the way for what the “capital of the Negev” hopes will turn the city into Israel’s next Silicon Valley.

Lockheed Martin and IBM formally announced that they will set up their research activities in the park, joining Deutsche Telekom and EMC.

More than 450 heads of industry and cyber security agencies from around the world attended Tel Aviv's Cybertech 2014, where the announcements of CyberSpark were made. Among those attending were 50 people from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, and top officials from Checkpoint, IBM, Cisco, EMC and Kaspersky.

"Beer-Sheva will not only be the cyber capital of Israel but one of the most important places in the cyber security field in the world," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the opening of the conference.

CyberSpark is being billed as the only complex of its kind in the world that includes industry leaders, academic research, leading security agencies, educational facilities and human capital specializing in cyber security and national government agencies.

Their goal is to produce a complete eco-system which will contain all the components needed to create a global leader in the cyber field by the pooling of resources, shared technology infrastructure construction and synergy of specialists, researchers and students.