Amir Husain returned to UT to tell the class of 2025 what he learned building an AI unicorn

AUSTIN — In May 2025, Amir Husain stood before the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences class of 2025 as a commencement speaker and a member of the school's Hall of Honor. The setting was fitting: Husain has built his AI career almost entirely in Austin, and his story is one the city likes to tell about itself.

Husain founded SparkCognition, an industrial artificial intelligence company, in 2013 and led it as CEO through the end of 2023, building it to a unicorn valuation. He was named Top Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by the Austin Business Journal and authored 'The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence.' Along the way he also took the helm of SkyGrid, a joint venture between Boeing and SparkCognition focused on autonomous aircraft.

His longevity is notable in a scene that often celebrates the newest raise. Husain has been working on applied AI for the physical and industrial world — not chatbots — since well before the current generative-AI wave made the field fashionable.

Why it matters

Austin's AI moment did not begin in 2023. Husain represents a deeper local lineage of building practical AI for energy, defense and heavy industry, the kind of work that doesn't trend but does ship. A founder of that vintage returning to address graduates closes a loop between the university's research pipeline and the companies it seeds.

It also underscores how tightly UT is woven into the city's tech identity. The same Cockrell and Natural Sciences programs that produced founders like Husain continue to feed Austin's robotics and AI companies, making the campus less a backdrop than an engine of the scene.

Amir Husain — a serial entrepreneur, technologist and author inducted into the College of Natural Sciences' Hall of Honor — will address the class of 2025 at graduation ceremonies on May 10.— UT Austin College of Natural Sciences