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.
Be sure to follow us on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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 & NVIDIA NemoClaw Hackathon
AITX Community is partnering with NVIDIA for a hands-on NemoClaw hackathon focused on building real autonomous agent applications. Participants will use NemoClaw, NVIDIA Agent Toolkit, and Nemotron models to build agents that do more than chat: they should take action, coordinate tools, and produce a working demo by the end of the event.
This is built for AI engineers, builders, founders, researchers, and technical operators who want to experiment with the next generation of agentic systems.
You do not need to be an expert in NemoClaw before arriving, but you should be comfortable building quickly and shipping a demo.
We are also very grateful to our current track sponsors: RedHat and HiddenLayer.
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.
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
So let’s jump in!
Community Events
When: Tuesday, July 14 | 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: Antler VC Austin, TX
What: We'll build a competitor ad-spy tool that turns hours of manual scrolling through the Meta Ad Library into a paste-one-URL workflow. You give it a competitor's Facebook page, and it pulls their video ads, ranks them by the spend and longevity signals that reveal a likely winner, and has AI watch each one to reverse-engineer the creative strategy: hook, offer, proof, and call to action (CTA).
When: Monday, Jul 20 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St · Austin, TX
What:
Agenda -
6:00 PM – 6:20 PM: Mingle and Get Food
• Grab some pizza, drinks, and chat for a bit as everyone arrives
6:20 PM – 6:30PM: Bryce and Reid go over current events
• featuring 5 questions of AI trivia to win prizes
6:30 PM – 7:00PM: Presentation #1
7:00 PM – 7:15PM: Presentation #2
7:15 PM – 8:00 PM: Hack / Network
• Collaborate with fellow attendees to apply what you've learned. Work on projects related to the evening's themes or any AI ideas you're passionate about.
When: Tuesday, July 21 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: Cloudflare Austin, Texas
What: Join us for a special AustinJS night dedicated entirely to AI Workflows!
When: Friday, July 10 5:30 PM - Jul 11, 6:30 PM
Where: Antler VC Austin, TX
What: A hands-on Organized AI workshop for builders moving beyond AI chat into real agentic systems. We’ll walk through the full agentic engineering stack: agents, workflows, second brains, model routing, subagent orchestration, browser QA, telemetry, recursive self-improvement, deployment, and visual system design.
When: Monday, July 13 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory Austin, TX
What: This meetup is created to help connect the local community and learn more about using Claude
COMMUNITY STORIES
Texas universities are launching innovative AI degree programs that combine artificial intelligence with traditional disciplines like business analytics, aiming to future-proof students' careers amid hiring slowdowns. The University of Texas at Dallas now offers programs such as an M.S. in Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, featuring courses in cutting-edge topics like Agentic AI. These hybrid programs position graduates to navigate the evolving job market where AI expertise paired with domain knowledge is increasingly valuable.
Why it matters: As AI transforms workforce requirements and creates uncertainty in hiring practices, educational institutions are pioneering integrated degree programs that prepare the next generation of AI-capable professionals who will shape how organizations implement and manage AI technologies.
Need to know:
UT Dallas has launched an M.S. in Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence program featuring specialized courses like Agentic AI taught in spring 2026
Texas universities are offering both bachelor's and master's degree programs that pair AI expertise with traditional disciplines rather than standalone AI degrees
The programs are designed to address company hiring slowdowns caused by uncertainty over AI's impact on workforce needs
West Texas landowners who previously profited from wind energy leases are now experiencing a second windfall as AI companies scramble to secure massive parcels of land for power-hungry data centers. The region's existing energy infrastructure, established during the wind boom that began with projects like the 47,000-acre Horse Hollow wind farm in 2006, has created the perfect foundation for AI's explosive expansion. Ranch families are transforming from cattle ranchers to infrastructure landlords, capitalizing on what may be the most lucrative land rush in Texas history.
Why it matters: The AI infrastructure boom driving demand for data centers directly impacts AITX's operational landscape, potentially affecting deployment strategies, partnership opportunities, and the broader ecosystem supporting AI-powered security solutions.
Need to know:
Horse Hollow, spanning 47,000 acres with 421 wind turbines since 2006, exemplifies how West Texas's wind energy infrastructure created the power grid foundation now attracting AI data centers
Landowners in areas like Abilene are receiving substantial lease payments as AI companies require massive amounts of land with access to reliable power infrastructure for data centers
The region's established pattern of dual-use land-cattle ranching beneath wind turbines-is now evolving into a triple revenue model with data center development added to the mix
Fermi America told a Texas House committee that Project Matador, its HyperGrid campus in the Panhandle, is being engineered to run the AI economy while sipping water instead of guzzling it. Chief Site Development Officer Charlie Hamilton laid out a four-pillar water strategy built on air cooling, closed loops, and on-site reuse.
Why it matters: Water is the fault line in the fight over Texas data centers, and Matador is trying to prove that AI-scale compute and Panhandle water limits can coexist.
Need-to-know:
The campus plans to lean on air-cooled condensers and hybrid cooling towers, which the company says should cut water use by roughly 80 percent versus conventional methods. Flush water gets captured and recycled, and restroom wastewater gets treated and reused for industrial tasks with nothing discharged off site.
Fermi says it will operate under the same limit as every other Panhandle irrigator, one acre-foot per acre per year, with no special exemptions. It has also agreed to pay Amarillo double the standard municipal water rate and build city water infrastructure on its own dime.
The longer-term goal is to go water positive, with engineers eyeing brackish desalination, absorption chilling, and controlled-environment agriculture for future phases.
That’s all for now, folks!
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