Techtonic will invest hundreds of millions NIS to build one of Israel’s largest data centers

Techtonic announced today that it will build a new data center in Beit Shemesh’s Brosh industrial zone at an investment of hundreds of millions of Shekels. Techtonic is in an advanced statutory stage aimed at receiving a full construction permit for the project. According to estimates, construction will be completed in the second quarter of 2025.

The new data center, which will include two electricity lines (main line and backup) of a very high power of 16 MW, will be an underground facility and is expected to occupy an area of 15,000 square meters, making it among the largest in Israel. Upon completion, the facility will meet the Tier Certification of Constructed Facility (TCCF) for Tier IV as defined by Uptime Institute. The redundant configuration of the facility’s systems ensures its ability to operate without interruption even in the midst of malfunction or war.

At the same time, the data center will be secured against military threats such as a direct missile strike, including long-range missiles strikes, which even in the event that they occur, will not affect the facility’s operations. The facility uniquely combines the redundancies of the Tier IV standard and the implementation of the physical shielding – a combination never seen before in any private data center in Israel.

Techtonic was founded by Gad Benett, an experienced software engineer and hi-tech entrepreneur whose rich track record includes working for around 15 years at various companies in Silicon Valley and Europe. In recent years, Gad Benett has been leading Paulina Ben-Ami & Associates – one of Israel’s most respected patent attorney firms. Techtonic’s other founding members include Director of Planning Dan Schleider, a seasoned executive with 25 years’ experience in managing and supervising real estate projects, Adam Benett, who oversees marketing, and Eliel Schleider, who is in charge of procurement and licensing.

Gad Benett, Founder and CEO of Techtonic: “The accelerated migration to the cloud has created vast demand for data centers. Yet many organizations still have doubts about physical safety, especially when it comes to highly exposed above-ground data centers. In response, Techtonic’s data center will be a secure, fortified underground hosting facility and among the most advanced in the country.”

Benett continued: “We’ve brought the best companies and advisors together in order to take a leap forward in the Israeli data center sector toward the strictest global standard, Tier IV, and toward advanced physical security – which will serve organizations which require these features, as well as those of large companies.

Eliel Schleider, who oversees procurement and licensing at Techtonic, noted: “Despite the tough competition for electricity allocation, our advanced planning stage allowed us to receive the connection approval for two electricity lines (main line and backup) of 16 megawatts. As a result, we are able to proceed quickly in the construction of the data center. We are proud to play a key role in building Israel’s most fortified and safe private data center, and set a new standard of security and quality.”

“Data Centers to Adopt High Voltage DC Power Sources”

Above: IBM’s Blue Gene computer paved the way for powerful AI Data Centers

“The large data centers are undergoing a deep structural change. We anticipate more datacenters moving away from Alternating Current (AC) in favor of 260-410V DC infrastructures to better cope with the massive increases in power needs of high-performance computing,” told Lev Slutskiy, Vicor’s EMEA Business Development Manager for High Performance Computing. “Google started testing the concept secretly back in 2015 and today companies like Nvidia are performing experiments with high voltage, that haven’t been published yet.”

According to Slutskiy, the Open Compute Project Foundation is also testing the new approach. The OCP was established 10 years ago by Facebook and now it brings together the biggest manufactureres of processors, servers and data center infrastructures. They are tackling an old electrical dilemma: Since the electric power is a multiplication of the voltage by current, using a high direct voltage at low currents saves a lot of energy (P = I²R). Until recently the problem was marginal: standard database servers consumed approximately 5kW each – and power systems that passed energy into the server circuits at a voltage of 12V and 416 Amps current – were good enough.

What can be done with 1,000 Amps

But times change and around 2015 the average power consumption of database servers increased to 12kW, with currents ranging up to 1k Amps. Most of the manufacturers dealt with the high currents using very large conduction cables, but this solution is beginning to reach the end of its ability. Especially in the last year in which the growing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning multiplied the power usage of the database servers: Vicor reports that in the large data centers the usage increased to about 20kW, and in some cases even to 100kW.

This means that the power distribution systems need to deal with huge currents of appoximately 1k Amps. At this point the OCP consortium started to define a format of database servers working at higher voltages of 48V. This decreases the current in the circuit by 4 and minimizes the power loss in the conduction cables by 16. Thus for instance, the current required for 12kW server will be only 250 Amps.

Vicor’s approach for direct power supply to the processors in the data center
Vicor’s approach for direct power supply to the processors in the data center

According to Jain Ajithkumar, Vicor’s Sr. Director for Strategic Accounts in Data Center, HPC and AI Business, this is just the first move in a larger trend and it holds further technological implications. “We are now at the beginning of a new era. The computer rooms will receive direct voltage of 350V, that will be converted to 48V at the racks level, and then to the exact voltage needed by each specific chip in the server.

“We are dealing here with two additional issues: today the processors work at 1.8V and 0.8V. When we minimize the width of the transistor to 5 nanometers, the voltage may reach down to 0.4V. There is a need for an advanced technology to answer this need – and to do it without compromising the space dedicated to the multitude of densed data links populating modern processors.”

Looking for the next Startup

This is where Vicor’s Factorized Power Architecture technology, originally developed for IBM’s 2007 Blue Gene supercomputer, comes into the picture. Blue Gene was powered by 350V, delivered through Vicor’s power distribution system, starting with high power rails, middle stages and ending with a dedicated chip directly connected to the CPU’s power connections. “We have developed a technique for pushing the power supply to each processor of Blue Gene.

“Now we are making that technology available for startup companies too, and therefore it is very important for us to exist in the Israeli Market. Out of all the influential startup companies in the world, just 5% come from Europe. Thus Israel’s foothold in the European market is very large. Today there are over 300 HPC startup companies in Israel, and most of the startups that are being sold to global companies are Israeli. We are offering to supply them with chips and full planning methodologies – including converting supply networks to voltages of hundreds of volts, bringing energy to the consumption point, lowering to a voltage of 48 volts and supply the required voltage for each processor.”

GDC to build a $30 million Underground Data Center

Global Data Center is planning an investment of approximately $30 million for its second data center in Israel, to be built in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv. In its initial stage, the highly secured underground site will encompass 6,000 square meters, and powered by a 15-megawatt supply of electricity. GDC plans to complete the construction phase in the end of 2020 and launch commercial operations during 2021. The company expects to double its area in the near future to 12,000 square meters, due to market demand.

Currently, GDC is operating a 6,000 square meters protected underground data center in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. The Petah Tikva data center is being built in accordance with Tier 3 Uptime global standard. It will include dedicated hosting domains that are tailored-made for the specific requirements of each customer, and offer DRP/BCP (Disaster Recovery Plan/Business Continuity Plan) services.

Global Data Center Founder and CEO Moshe Lasman (photo above) said that the new data center will serve the large high-tech ecosystem located in Petah Tikva. “Technology companies, financial institutions, and multinational organizations in Israel understand the value embodied in the hosting of their IT and telecommunications infrastructure at a secure external site. We project a large demand for hosting services at the new Petah Tikva site.”

Global Data Center was founded in 2013 by Moshe Lasman in cooperation and with the financial backing of the Viola Group and GlenRock, a private equity firm. Lasman served in the past as the director of IBM Israel’s outsourcing division and the director of HP Global Services in Israel.

For more information:  Global Data Center