Speaking at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York, Navot Bar, CEO and co-founder of Keystone Infra, a publicly traded infrastructure investment company, explained the infrastructure shortage in Israel and the work Keystone Infra is doing to address it.
Bar explained that Israel’s infrastructure shortage affects different segments of the economy, including transportation, power, telecommunications, renewable energy, and water. Speaking of the need to add infrastructure in the transportation sector, he said, “Traffic congestion in Israel is no longer only in the morning. It’s at every time of day, and everywhere you go.”
AI and the need for data centers also require major infrastructure investments. “Data centers are all about power. Israel is the main point in the Middle East to provide for all the hyperscalers, and all the American giants that are coming to the Middle East and need to build data centers.”
One factor that has added to the need for infrastructure, he noted, is Israel’s rapidly growing population. “Developing infrastructure can take a matter of years, and the chase for more infrastructure is always there,” he noted. “When you add these extra heavy power consumers, or those that require AI, or to transportation, you get a bottleneck in everything. We decided that we need to be in every sector where there is a shortage.”
Bar explained that Keystone Infra has opened investment into infrastructure to the public. “There is access now to anyone who wants to develop Israel and also make some money from infrastructure. Infrastructure is a very attractive investment, but it used to be a closed club only for the giant pension funds and the institutionals. And now, once it's publicly traded, access is available to everyone. When you hold Keystone, you hold transportation, you hold power generation, desalination, and AI data centers.
“Building infrastructure in Israel is building Israel. When we build Israel, we are pushing Israel forward. Infrastructure is basic for the development of Israel.”
This article was written in cooperation with Keystone Infra.