“I was born and raised in the village of Majid Al Qurum (in the Galilee) and was fascinated by the field of technology from an early age. I remember my father buying us a computer, which was not something we took for granted. I shared that computer with my brothers,” said Ali Ayoub, vice president of software engineering at NVIDIA. globe Technology Editor Asaf Gilead; Globe to allow North Korea to participate in central conference It was held in cooperation with Leumi Bank and Strauss Group.
Ayoub talked about AI and its potential to replace engineers and juniors, how to hire workers in the north, how to integrate Arab society into the technology profession, collaboration between NVIDIA and academia, and how he got to his current position at NVIDIA.
Ayoub’s rise to the position of NVIDIA Vice President took place in several stages. He earned a degree in computer engineering from the Technion, worked at Mellanox, moved to the US, worked at Google and founded a start-up company. Ten years later, he returned to Israel and Mellanox, where he remained after its acquisition by NVIDIA. He founded the DOCA functional group at the US semiconductor giant and currently manages hundreds of employees at NVIDIA in Israel and around the world. He is also the co-founder of HAAT food delivery company.
When asked why he chose to return to Israel, he replied: “People often ask me why I left the center of the country to come to the North. I left Silicon Valley, the center of the world, and came back to the North. This is home. In the tech world, we always talk about the importance of work-life balance, but the North is my life, I’m closer to my family, and working at NVIDIA is my job. For me, the stars aligned and looking back, it was one of the best decisions I made. I made it. ”
NVIDIA plans to build a large development center in Kiryat Tibon over the next 10 years that will accommodate 8,000 to 10,000 employees. Why the North, especially Kiryat Tivon?
“The North has great human capital and technology companies really want the best. The North has very good universities, first of all. And in general, if you want to find great talent, it’s worth looking where others don’t look. In NVIDIA’s eyes, the North is a region with great human capital and growth potential, and they are It’s not a coincidence that we chose it. From our point of view, we have the raw materials here and we are full of very good talent. In my opinion, we not only have talent here, but we also have untapped talent.”
Could you tell us more about NVIDIA’s activities in Israel?
“With 5,000 employees, NVIDIA Israel is our largest branch outside the United States. Our employees are the nerve system of our data centers. They are focused on transforming networking and AI. NVIDIA makes GPUs (graphics processing units) and AI engines. Once you could build an AI data center with a few hundred GPUs, now you can build an AI data center with a few hundred GPUs. They need to be connected to very fast networks, and this is where NVIDIA Israel comes in. We are providing these high-speed networks, which are at the heart of the AI revolution, not just in Israel but around the world.”
How do you hire employees in the North?
“First, you have to believe that they exist, look for them, and find them. It’s a matter of cause and effect. There’s a lot of stress on work-family balance, not just in tech but in all kinds of jobs. The North brings the family part and we have to deal with the work part.” So companies need to set up offices here, focus here, and create quality job opportunities. In my opinion, this is the biggest thing that keeps people here. We don’t see NVIDIA North as a periphery, we see it as the epicenter of the AI revolution, and if you see it, you’ll find it.”
Are you working with universities to secure future talent?
“For us, the university is more than just a partnership, it’s a complement to us. It’s not just a favor to the university, we want the best for us. Personally, every two months, a high school or a school comes to visit us. It starts before the university.”
Commenting on the collaboration with universities, Mr. Ayoub said: “We work very closely with universities. This is reflected in our career fairs, and we also have programs where we provide AI tools to lecturers and students, which allows us to have very close relationships.”
Regarding the changes required of universities and the integration of AI tools, he said, “I think universities are also changing. Universities are also looking at us and making suggestions on how to change their syllabuses and courses. The juniors and students that we have hired are doing a great job and integrating with AI quickly. We will hire people who have the basic tools and we will train and use AI tools internally.”
Regarding the difficulty of getting young people into technical roles, he said: “We are hiring a lot of young people, and we are at the center of an AI revolution that will require more jobs. We need to hire people. We are doing it because we believe in our juniors and we don’t believe that AI will replace them.”
“Those who don’t use AI will be left behind.”
You’re the VP of Software Engineering at NVIDIA, which is the area most vulnerable to the impact of AI. In some companies, employees and programmers haven’t written a program for six months. Do you think programmers will be replaced by AI?
“Absolutely not. AI will never replace an engineer, but an engineer who doesn’t use AI will be replaced by another who uses AI. Almost every engineer at NVIDIA uses AI. Work that would take weeks to do alone is now done in days or hours. AI is such an important tool that those who don’t use it will be left behind. For those who look at AI from the right perspective, AI will definitely create new jobs.”
Would you recommend your young children study software or electrical engineering when they grow up?
“You can’t have one without the other. I study and work in software, and the software I create is software that complements hardware. Hardware is the body, and software is the mind. You can’t have a body without a mind, and vice versa. They complement each other.”
You’ve said before that when you were a child, your family was very against studying computer engineering.
“My parents may have wanted me to be a doctor, maybe they still do,” laughs Ayoub. “I remember when I was trying to get into school, I had the option to choose two majors, but I was assertive and only enrolled in my first major.”
How has Arab society changed in recent years? How easy is it for young people to integrate into the tech industry?
“At the Technion, we see them, but many of them give up and pursue other paths after completing their degree. Yet, almost 16% of technology students today are from Arab communities. 50% of our Arab students are female, and we are very proud of this. Tech companies want diversity, and we think it’s a blessing and a good thing for creating better products.”
Ayoub stressed that more needs to be done as there aren’t that many entrepreneurs from Arab societies. “Right now there’s a lot more openness and exposure to technology, and we need more role models who can say, ‘I’m going to be a tech expert when I grow up.’ I think that’s happening, but we need to push for it more.”
Full disclosure: This conference was organized in cooperation with Leumi Bank and Strauss Group, sponsored by Aura Investments, Tel Hai Academic College, Propud, and with the participation of Netivey Israel National Transportation Infrastructure Corporation.
