The United States and Israel announced on Wednesday the launch of a new Strategic High-Level Dialogue on Technology that aims to establish a technological partnership between the two nations.
The new partnership, announced ahead of President Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel on his first trip to the Middle East as president, will focus on pandemic preparedness, climate change, implementation of artificial intelligence, and developing trusted technology ecosystems.
In a joint statement from Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, the two leaders pledged to boost “mutual innovation ecosystems, to deepen bilateral engagements, advance and protect critical and emerging technologies in accordance with our national interests, democratic principles and human rights, and to address geostrategic challenges.”
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The dialogue will task the national security councils of both countries to explore ways to develop and protect technology that can be used to solve four emerging global challenges.
On the issue of pandemic preparedness, the dialogue hopes to facilitate the development of technology for disease surveillance, early warning, and rapid medical countermeasure responses.
The dialogue will also explore ways of using “trustworthy artificial intelligence” in the fields of transportation, medicine, and agriculture and discuss how to evaluate and measure the success of AI tools.
To combat climate change, the U.S. and Israel will promote cooperative research and development ventures “to drive equitable climate solutions (e.g., water reuse, solid waste management, clean and renewable energy).”
Finally, the dialogue will try to create “trusted tech ecosystems” for information exchange that may “increase coordination on policies on risk management in our innovation ecosystems, including research security, investment screening, and export controls, as well as on technology investment and protection strategies for critical and emerging technologies.”
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The Strategic Dialogue on Technology will convene annually, according to the joint statement, alternating between the U.S. and Israel. The first meeting is set to take place in Israel in the fall of 2022.
The leaders hope the new dialogue will elevate the existing strategic partnership between the U.S. and Israel “to new heights.”
