Microsoft a US tech giant is reportedly planning to invest $1 billion to $1.5 billion in Israel through setting up a new data center locally and expanding its chip research and development activities.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month and informed him about the plans, Globes reported on Monday, without saying where it got the information.
Nadella told Netanyahu that Israel is “a very important development center for Microsoft,” Globes said, stating that the CEO has made no requests for government incentives for the investments and none were offered.
Spokespeople for Microsoft in Israel and for the Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the report.
Microsoft benefits from a low tax rate of 6% on profits from the intellectual property generated in Israel, lower that the average corporate tax rate of 23%. Small tech firms pay a tax rate of 7.5% to 12%, Globes said.
The US tech giant said last year that it would set up its first cloud data center in Israel to offer services to Israeli customers, starting with Azure and following with Office 365, expected to be operational sometime this year.
The setting up of the center “marks a significant investment by Microsoft in the Israeli market,” the company said at the time.
Discover more from LN247
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
