Aple Chief Executive Tim Cook was in Israel on Thursday to visit the company’s new research-and-development offices north of Tel Aviv.

The offices in Herzlyia, and Apple’s R&D center in Haifa, in the country’s north, make Israel Apple’s second largest research and development hub outside of the U.S.

Apple isn’t the only global tech giant setting up shop in Israel. Google, Facebook, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and more than 250 other international companies have all established R&D centers in the country, many times following local acquisitions.

What is Apple looking for in Israel? A possible answer lies in the companies it’s already bought: Anobit Technologies Ltd. and PrimeSense Ltd., two microprocessor chip design firms.

Apple has also hired most of the Israeli employees of a chip-design division that Texas Instruments TXN -1.05% decided to shut down in 2013 in Ra’anana, some 10 miles north of Tel-Aviv.

LIn the past three years, Apple has hired staff for its chip design center in Haifa.

And on its current jobs posting site for Israel, Apple is advertising for a range of hardware and software positions, including silicon and semiconductor design and testing engineers who will be required to work in labs.

“Apple’s Israeli acquisitions and its expanding local workforce show that the company is becoming more and more independent on the chip level, where it once had to rely on external suppliers,” said Shlomo Gradman, chairman of the Israeli Semiconductor Club.

Apple declined to comment.

In 2012 Apple presented the A6 chip, the main processor and graphic processor of iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c models. Unlike prior generations of the series, Apple developed it on its own, without collaborating with Samsung 005930.SE +4.86%. By developing chips internally Apple is shouldering significant development costs. Potentially, if the number of units used is high enough, it is benefiting from a lower cost per unit, not having to pay to an external supplier. It can also benefit from a better fit to the specific product, and prolong the time it would take competitors to get to the market with similar technologies.

Heading Apple’s efforts on chip capabilities is Johny Srouji, vice president of hardware technologies at the company.

Mr. Srouji, an Israeli Arab who grew up in Haifa, joined Apple in 2008. He is accompanying Mr. Cook on his current visit. He is also regarded as the person who led Apple’s expansion in Israel.

“We’ve hired our first individual in Israel in 2011 and we now have over 700 people working in Israel directly for us,” Mr. Cook said in the meeting with Israeli president Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday

“Israel and Apple have gotten much closer together over the last three years than ever before, and we see that as just the beginning,” he added.

Cook arrived in Israel after visiting Germany where he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On Monday, Apple announced it would spend nearly $2 billion to build its first two data centers in Europe.

By: DocMemory
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