Hello everyone! AITX Team here with more updates this week.
If you’re new here, welcome! 👋 At AITX, we aim to:
Connect you with like-minded peers passionate about AI.
Provide a space for sharing ideas and receiving feedback on AI projects you’re building.
Share helpful tools and invaluable resources.
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Before we jump into the regular news, a few housekeeping items:
Upcoming AITX Community Events:
Austin AITX Community Monthly Meetup | sign up here!
Houston AITX Community Monthly Meetup | sign up here!
To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX Community calendar here.
Check out our Community Directory:
Where you can fill out your profile and find other members of the AITX community. If you haven’t filled out your profile yet, please follow the link HERE and submit your information.
AITX Community Member Survey
As we head into the summer, we wanted to take the time to ask how we can help y’all better.
Please fill out this survey to tell us how we can better help you (takes less than 2 minutes) 👇
State of AI in Texas Report Survey Live!
Howdy! The State of AI in Texas Report (STAR) has been finalized.
AITX Community and UT School of Law is excited to hear what the community has to say! By mapping the AI landscape and understanding stakeholder interactions, we hope to identify key businesses involved with AI development in Texas.
And by learning about AI product usage and how to support needs of new AI developers, we aim to provide a report that will both inform smart AI policy and serve as a guide for businesses on AI development.
THE WHO – We Want to Hear From You: If you’re based in Texas and work at Startups, Scaleups, or Enterprises, this survey is for you.
This is your chance to have your voice heard.
Austin CTO Demo Night
Join AITX Community, the Austin CTO Club, and Antler for CTO Demo Night, an evening where local CTOs share the side projects, prototypes, internal tools, AI experiments, and weekend hacks they’ve been building outside the normal product roadmap..
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
So let’s jump in!
Community Events
When: Tuesday, June 9 | 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: Antler VC Austin, TX
What: We'll go beyond single-purpose scrapers and learn how to build better agent tools by combining multiple Apify Actors into one Actor with custom logic. The kind of tool you'd actually want to hand to an agent: scoped, opinionated, and built around a real task instead of a raw API.
When: Thursday, June 25 | 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: The Malin East Austin Austin, TX
What: This is an open mic night for Customer Success and post-sales pros in Austin. Bring your laptop, share your screen, and walk us through an AI use case you've built.
When: Wednesday, June 24 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CDT
Where: CGCS, ACC Rio Campus Build #3000 1218 West Ave Bldg #3000 · Austin, TX
What: Join us on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM CST at The Center for Government and Civic Service, 1218 West Ave, Building 3000, Austin, TX 78701. This meetup will feature a series of community-driven talks focused on real-world applications and forward-looking innovations across: AI and GenAI platforms, Cloud-native and scalable infrastructure, DevOps and platform engineering, Security and identity in modern systems
When: Thursday, June 4 | 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM CST
Where: Cosmic Saltillo Austin, TX
What: This one's different. No demos. For Event No. 4, we're keeping it simple: show up, grab a drink, and talk to humans. (We'll get back to the demo format, don't worry!)
When: Wednesday, June 24 | 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: Elastic Office 823 Congress Ave · Austin, TX
What: Agenda:
5:30 pm: Doors open
6:00 pm: Building AI Workflows with Elasticsearch, RAG, and Edge Observability - Binoy Jose and Benjamin Francis
6:30 pm: Talk # 2 - Interested in presenting? Let us know!
7:15-8:00 pm: Networking
COMMUNITY STORIES
While states like Maine consider moratoriums on data centers due to electricity and water concerns, Texas is experiencing a massive surge in AI data center development. The Lone Star State's abundant land, favorable regulations, and independent ERCOT power grid are attracting developers amid skyrocketing demand for AI and cloud computing services.
Why it matters: This trend could position Texas as America's AI infrastructure hub, potentially impacting where AITX and other robotics companies deploy solutions and establish operations as AI-driven technologies scale nationwide.
Need to know:
Texas is experiencing a surge of new AI data center projects while other states implement bans and moratoriums over resource consumption concerns
Most projects are tied to the ERCOT interconnection queue, with major developments also planned in non-ERCOT regions like El Paso
Regulators are debating whether the influx of new data centers will strain Texas's power grid and drive up electricity costs for consumers
Saronic Technologies, the Austin defense startup building AI-powered autonomous drone ships, wants to construct a $3.2 billion shipyard called "Port Alpha" at the Port of Brownsville. The project hinges on a Cameron County tax abatement vote scheduled for June 2, after local backlash stalled an earlier decision.
Why it matters: A homegrown Austin unicorn turning AI autonomy into one of the largest industrial bets on the Texas coast shows just how far the state's AI sector now reaches beyond software.
Need-to-know:
Saronic was founded in 2022 and has already raised $9.5 billion while landing hundreds of millions in U.S. military contracts.
Port Alpha promises 10,000 permanent jobs within 10 years at a $25 per hour minimum, though the agreement itself concedes a local shortage of qualified labor.
A nearby school district already approved a $228 million incentive in March, while Cameron County weighs abating up to 95% of Saronic's tax bill from 2029 to 2038.
Austin Is Building the Country's First AI-Native Hospital
UT Dell Medical School has recruited former Mayo Clinic researcher Hongfang Liu to design the AI system inside its planned UT Dell Medical Center, which the school is calling the nation's first AI-native hospital. Backed by a $750 million-plus gift from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the first phase off Burnet Road is set to open in late 2030.
Why it matters: Most hospitals bolt AI onto legacy systems, so a ground-up build in Austin gives Texas a rare shot at setting the national template for how AI actually works in patient care.
Need-to-know:
Liu describes the project as "a green field" with no existing technology to tear out, letting her team design data, AI, and computing into the hospital from the start.
AI-native does not mean human-free. The system runs in the background to flag changing health values, cut documentation time, and surface the most relevant patient data so nurses and doctors can focus on people.
Liu plans ongoing research to test whether the AI improves outcomes and whether patients even notice it, feeding that back into the system over time.
That’s all for now, folks!
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