The Beat

Artificial Intelligence

The labs, the models, and the very real businesses being rebuilt around them.

AI3 min read

Texas ranks 9th for jobs most exposed to AI, and Austin sits in the crosshairs

A new report estimates half a million Texas workers hold roles with high AI exposure, concentrated in the tech-heavy cities the state has spent years courting.

Dev OkonkwoSep 16

AISep 4

HiddenLayer lands $100M to secure the AI that companies are rushing into production

Dev Okonkwo

AIJul 6

More AI

AIDev Okonkwo · Jun 10

Austin venture funding hits an all-time high, led by AI and robotics

Crunchbase data shows the city's startups raised record capital, with AI, robotics and advanced manufacturing leading the pack.

AIDev Okonkwo · Jun 2

Why Austin keeps showing up on the AI-chip startup map

From analog inference at Mythic to open-architecture silicon at Tenstorrent, the city is quietly stacking AI-hardware talent.

AIDev Okonkwo · May 12

The Austin corridor is becoming Texas' data center magnet

A $1.44 billion EdgeConneX campus in Bastrop County is one of several AI compute projects clustering around Austin and San Antonio.

AIDev Okonkwo · Apr 30

Colossal Biosciences, Austin's de-extinction decacorn, keeps raising

The genetic-engineering company is past a $10 billion valuation as it pushes mammoth, dire wolf and bluebuck programs forward.

AIDev Okonkwo · Apr 27

Avoca hits $1B valuation selling AI voice agents to plumbers and HVAC shops

The startup's agents answer calls, book jobs and chase estimates for service businesses — and it's on track to book $1 billion in work this year.

AIDev Okonkwo · Apr 24

Samsung's Taylor fab moves toward making Tesla's next AI chips

Equipment is going in at the $44B Central Texas plant as Samsung preps 2-nanometer production for Tesla's AI5 and AI6.

AIDev Okonkwo · Apr 15

Google commits $40 billion to three new AI data center hubs in Texas

The investment, running through 2027, deepens Big Tech's concentration of compute in the state.

AIDev Okonkwo · Mar 31

Saronic raises $1.75B at a $9.25B valuation to build autonomous warships in Texas

The Austin defense startup more than doubled its valuation as the Pentagon leans on cheaper, software-defined naval hardware.

AIDev Okonkwo · Mar 26

Meta sixfolds its El Paso AI data center bet to $10 billion

The campus is targeting 1 gigawatt of capacity by 2028 as hyperscalers pour capital into Texas.

AIDev Okonkwo · Feb 23

Circuit pulls $30M angel round to put AI on the factory floor

Silicon Labs veterans bet that AI can capture the institutional know-how walking out the door as experienced workers retire.

AIDev Okonkwo · Feb 18

Apptronik leans on Google DeepMind's Gemini to give Apollo a brain

The Austin robotics maker is building its next humanoids on DeepMind's Gemini Robotics models — and Google is now an investor too.

AIDev Okonkwo · Feb 5

Crusoe and partners pour $15 billion into the Abilene Stargate site

The wind-powered campus is being built to host 400,000 Nvidia GPUs as Stargate scales in West Texas.

AIDev Okonkwo · Jan 30

Oracle to spend $40B on Nvidia chips to power OpenAI's Texas megacenter

The cloud provider will buy roughly 400,000 GB200 GPUs for the Abilene data center under a 15-year deal.

AIDev Okonkwo · Jan 27

Serve Robotics buys Austin's Diligent, pushing sidewalk delivery into hospitals

The ~$25.7M deal hands Serve the Moxi hospital robot and its first beachhead in indoor mobile manipulation.