IDF "Big Data" Unit

Inside the IDF unit that extended big data to the Iran war

The IDF intelligence, programming, cyber, communications, and data unit known as “Matzpen” (“Compass”) has had a broad reach on many fronts for the IDF for a long time.

But The Jerusalem Post has learned that it extended the full breadth of its big data capabilities over 1,500 km. away to Iran during Operation Rising Lion in June.

This was especially true for the dramatic “opening shot” by Israel, which sent Tehran reeling in the early hours of the war and both delayed and mitigated the ayatollahs’ response.

If, normally, it is challenging for Matzpen to figure out ways to get its new programs and applications to maximize the effectiveness of IDF operations in enemy territory, even as close geographically as Gaza, doing so in the Islamic Republic at such an extreme distance represented an all-new kind of challenge.

Changes in the air

Although computer programs and data reside mainly in the digital universe, which ignores geographic borders, there are still various kinds of physical infrastructure needed to facilitate those programs and data traveling to other areas.

IDF Chief-of-Staff Eyal Zamir speaks to Air Force personnel amid Israeli strikes on Iran, June 14, 2025 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Israel had never tried to carry out a massive and extended operation with constant updates about where the last Israeli bomb dropped and where the last Iranian ballistic missile was fired from in a country as far away as Iran.

But new techniques and programs that Matzpen developed for more extended warfare in close enemy territory were reverse-engineered to apply them to countries at much farther distances.

Of course, senior IDF sources have indicated to the Post that each program and data stream may need unique algorithms and solutions to function, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran.

Matzpen could be working on a couple of dozen new applications at a time to improve the IDF’s offensive and defensive capacities.

If developing complex new applications to confront new challenges could take months or years, now the IDF can develop such new programs at much faster rates.

But the bottom line for Matzpen’s commanders is that IDF field commanders should feel like they are dealing with a familiar technological world that is user-friendly and empowers them to better carry out the war’s strategy and tactics. This is as opposed to slowing them down with having to learn too many new technological interactions.

These field commanders should have no idea how hard Matzpen’s commanders and their soldiers are working behind the scenes to produce new applications to analyze and collate big data intelligence collection campaigns from the full spectrum of new IDF data clouds, many of which have distinctive purposes and interactions.

Likewise, when the IDF shares intelligence with the Mossad and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and vice versa, Matzpen wants to make sure that its programming is so flawless and seamless that different agencies and their spies will barely spend time thinking about how a mountain of data arrived at their fingertips.

Changes in the field

A major point of Matzpen’s applications is to stream data fast to all the different higher and lower field commander levels regarding the precise location of enemy forces.

This has been a growing trend even before the current war, but the sheer number of Gazans, both fighters and civilians, who were constantly moving around during different stages of the Gaza invasion, was a whole new challenge.

The IDF was using drones on a large scale for both surveillance and attacks before October 7, but still nowhere near the volume and scale it has used them during the current war.

Managing the spike of additional warnings from enemy attacks and quickly matching the location of the enemy attack with an appropriate IDF drone or other platform for counterattacking with almost no delay has been an all-new challenge.

This means constantly sending incredible amounts of data from new sensors to drone teams and other platforms to help them “hunt” down enemy fighters at much faster speeds than was ever possible in prior wars.

This issue is strategic and not only tactical because when the IDF has counter-struck Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iranian rocket and missile teams at much faster speeds, it has helped “convince” other teams not to bother firing to stay alive.

Another issue that Matzpen’s big data and programming abilities have helped with is reducing friendly fire incidents.

At this point, Matzpen’s applications help map out friendly forces to such a precise extent that – while friendly fire accidents still happen – it is usually not because soldiers don’t know where other units are during routine maneuvers.

Rather, it is generally only in cases where some soldiers are pinned down so badly that they cannot even physically interface properly with whatever data might be available.

These same big data capabilities are also used by the IDF to provide commanders with rapid access to multiple possible military plans for achieving a mission goal.

Matzpen also provides data to the IDF Home Front Command to help decide how to respond to various ballistic missile, drone, and rocket threats, and to develop new capabilities for maximizing when and how to use Israel’s varying multi-layer defense capabilities.

Besides the military, Matzpen’s applications are sometimes also used for the general public. This can mean to better gather and analyze open-source intelligence (OSINT) or to provide more data and faster to average citizens about aerial threats.

IDF's ChatGPT goes operational

Moreover, Matzpen has developed the IDF’s own version of ChatGPT and chatbots, which IDF personnel can speak to verbally to interact with and to achieve new goals.

This IDF ChatGPT is uniquely sensitive to military terms and culture, both in terms of inputs and in its responses, to maximize clarity and efficiency for field commanders.

The IDF chatbot has also significantly advanced how much IDF field commanders can move around and interact with evolving data during mobile operations, as opposed to only being able to connect with their data sources when in a more stationary headquarters area.

Matzpen also makes sure that its applications cannot be easily hacked or accessed by outside actors and will keep certain references to intelligence sources in coded terms, the same way that humans might interact using codes to refer to their sources.

Producing all of these distinct applications requires huge time, resources, and monetary investments for Matzpen to always be developing many new applications.

In addition, the IDF’s operational chat connects to a form of Google Drive, but also has digital and physical adjustments to vet and secure data, which are super robust and can be carried out at scale.

Satellite data

Regarding satellite and other surveillance data, the Post has learned that there is a special digital architecture that passes around data from satellites and surveillance photos taken from aircraft.

There is a platform called MAPIT, which connects to other platforms to make the photos appear realistic, and it can achieve the mapping out of certain areas on a regularly updated basis.

Previously, the Defense Ministry revealed that Israel was able to surveil hundreds of thousands of square kilometers in Iran per day.

Providing updates on this data is carried out in three dimensions and is then integrated with other tactical operating systems.

Matzpen has helped streamline the process of providing this visual intelligence data to field commanders in real time.

IDF Intelligence Directorate head Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder addressing an operations room amid Israel's strikes on Iran as part of Operation ''Rising Lion,'' June 13, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

More on defense

The war finally brought the drone surveillance capabilities to a different level of maturity. When an organization connects them to supremacy in digital infrastructure, a critical mass of sensors, and all of the history of those who previously used the drones, it achieves startling, cutting-edge new operational capabilities.

In that vein, Matzpen programs now help provide incredible amounts of prior history on tactics that were used to defend a previous area. The digital data storage directory records all warnings in real time, from any drone and any other flying platform, and relays the warning to the forces who need it in real time.

On the “active defense” side, Matzpen programs are tracking the placement and finding of improvised explosives (IEDs) with much greater precision than any military has ever done before.

Providing exact coordinates – a few meters one way or another – for where IEDs are located or for areas that have been cleared by bulldozers or other units as not having IEDs, can mean the difference between life and death for troop personnel carriers and tanks maneuvering into a new battle space.

In the cyber defense arena, Matzpen provides some of the applications and infrastructure that other divisions of the IDF use to keep the military from getting hacked, though they spend more time facilitating IDF attack capabilities.

As the IDF prepares to move from wartime into peacetime, one can only guess what new kinds of challenges will be thrown at Matzpen for addressing different security threats based on their particular nuances.

But whatever challenges will be thrown at it, Matzpen’s team of programmers has shown they are ready to tackle just about any new challenge.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-871733