Apple has announced that the company is opening a new development site in Jerusalem that will take part in upcoming projects including the development of future processors for the Mac.
The news was announced by Apple’s Elad Wertheimer (opens in new tab) and picked up by The Times of Israel (opens in new tab). In a Hebrew-language post on Wednesday Wertheimer stated “I’m happy to share that we, Apple, are opening a new development site – in Jerusalem!.”
The company is already recruiting engineers for chip development, Wertheimer says the site “will take part in the flagship projects that we are leading from Israel” which will first and foremost “the development of future processors for the Mac.”
Chip Hub
As the Times of Israel notes, Apple’s Israeli teams were pivotal in developing the company’s first-ever Apple silicon chip, the M1 which was unveiled in 2020 as part of the beginning of the company’s transition away from Intel.
That first debuted in the M1 MacBook Pro and M1 MacBook Air as well as the Mac mini. Since then the company has added beefier versions of the chip in the form of the M1 Pro and M1 Max, as well as the M1 Ultra.
It has also since unveiled its second generation, the M2, which features in our recently reviewed all-new MacBook Air for 2022, one of the company’s best MacBooks in recent memory.
The company reportedly employs around 2,000 people in Israel including at existing R&D sites in Herzliya and Haifa. Apple’s SVP of hardware technologies Johny Srouji told Globes recently that “through Israeli development, Apple manages and streamlines the data storage technology in a range of devices: Wireless communication components for the Apple Watch, as well as the integrated circuits that were developed in Israel, and the jewel in the crown: the Israeli team played a central role in developing the premium version of the company’s flagship M1 processor, including the M1Pro and M1Max chips designed to support premium Mac computers such as MacBook Pro and MacBook Studio.”
