Israel upgrades growth forecasts, citing Nvidia’s impact

When a single company can shift a nation’s GDP forecast by more than a percentage point, it’s worth paying attention. Israel’s Finance Ministry has revised its economic growth projections upward for 2025, and the person most responsible for that revision doesn’t work in Jerusalem. He works in Santa Clara. Finance Ministry Chief Economist Shmuel Abramzon confirmed in an interview that revenues tied to Nvidia’s Israeli operations are a primary driver of the upgraded outlook. Without Nvidia’s contribution, Israel’s GDP growth for 2025 would have landed around 1.6%. With it, the projection sits at 2.9%. The Mellanox effect Nvidia’s Israeli footprint runs through Mellanox, the networking and connectivity company it acquired for $6.9 billion in 2020. Mellanox’s technology sits at the heart of AI data-center infrastructure, connecting the GPUs that train large language models and run inference workloads at scale. Nvidia’s networking division, developed largely out of Israel, is projected to contribute around $20 billion in revenue for calendar 2025, with estimates pointing toward more than $40 billion in 2026. The relevant segment was already generating roughly $15 billion in quarterly re...