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 Events:
Houston AITX Monthly Meetup: Thursday, Nov 27, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM CST | sign up here!
To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX 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.
State of Texas AI Report Interest
Texas is one of the most proactive states in AI policy and regulation.
We want YOU to join the conversation.
AITX Community is collaborating with UT School of Law for the State of AI Report (STAR) for Texas—a first-of-its-kind look at how Texas engineers, entrepreneurs, and businesses are building with AI.
This report will be shared with state policymakers and business leaders to help shape the future of AI in Texas.
If you want your voice included, register your interest below. We’ll follow up with next steps on how you can contribute feedback or insights.
AITX Community x NVIDIA Hackathon Recap
This past weekend we had our Austin Tech Week Hackathon with NVIDIA.
Here’s a quick recap of the track winners and bounty winners:
Track Winners
🥇 Nemotron Track – Out of Pocket
Turns hospital pricing data into an AI chat interface that makes healthcare costs understandable and comparable. Built with NVIDIA Nemotron models and an open-source data pipeline, it aims to unlock $80B in potential savings through transparent pricing.
Team: Alex Hurley, Josh Noble, Dev Bhatt, Praneel Seth, Scott Collins
🥇 Akash Open Source Track – Out of Pocket
Out of Pocket also took top spot here for open sourcing their project.
🥇 Weights & Biases Agents Track – Loyaltie
Built a phone-based AI ordering system that remembers caller preferences, payments, and orders—cutting call time, boosting upsells, and improving customer experience.
Team: Saksham Adhikari, Sharan Murli, Darshan Rao
🏆 Community Choice Award – Out of Pocket
Bounty Winners
Loman AI Bounty
The Loyaltie team
Toolhouse Bounty
FixMyPlace, NeMo Context Highway, My Form Snapper
ElevenLabs Bonus
Torka (Adaptive Learning for Modern Students)
Thank you to the companies that posted bounties for this one and sweetening the pot.
Thank you to our main sponsor NVIDIA.
And thank you to our supporting sponsors: Akash Network, Google, ionstream, Antler, Weights & Biases, J.P. Morgan, and webAI for making the Hackathon and Hack Fair possible.
We look forward to having the community back for our next hackathon.
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
So let’s jump in!
UPCOMING EVENTS
When: Wednesday, November 5 | 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM CST
Where: ACC - RGC 3000 1218 West Avenue · Austin, TX
What: The AI Middleware Users Group believes in “Learning in the Open.” Together we explore LangChain, LangGraph, LangSmith, and the wider AI stack—sharing demos, pitfalls, and wins so everyone levels up.
When: Thursday, November 20 | 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: Sahaj Software 8911 N Capital of Texas Hwy,Suite 4200 · Austin, TX
What: Join us for an informal, experience-sharing catchup with fellow AI, data, and ML enthusiasts! This is a relaxed space to exchange lessons learned, talk about experiments that worked (and the ones that didn’t), and explore how others are solving real-world challenges in data and AI.
When: Thursday, November 20 | 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St · Austin, TX
What: Deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and Agents, hands-on experiences on code labs, workshops, and networking with speakers and fellow developers.
When: Tuesday, November 4 | 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory, Voltron Room (1st floor) 701 Brazos Street · Austin, TX
What: Austin Deep Learning Journal Club is group for committed machine learning practitioners and researchers alike. The group typically meets every first Tuesday of each month to discuss research publications.
When: Thursday, November 6 | 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM CST
Where: Qubika 1141 Shady Ln · austin, TX
What: Join the Austin Data & AI community for an evening of hands-on learning, real-world demos, and networking. Expect a night of live demos, insightful discussions, food & drinks, and plenty of opportunities to connect with fellow data and AI professiona
COMMUNITY STORIES
Texas approved a $1.1 billion low-interest loan to build a 1,350 MW gas-fired power plant in the Permian Basin — the largest project yet under its new Energy Fund. The goal: stabilize the grid and meet the surging electricity demand from AI data centers.
Why it matters: AI is reshaping Texas’ energy map — driving new power infrastructure from Austin’s data clusters to West Texas megaplants.
Need-to-know:
Backed by Competitive Power Ventures; operational by 2029.
Will power ~850K homes and key AI data centers.
Designed for future carbon capture; fueled by multiple Permian gas suppliers.
Learn more here.
Texas is building one of the nation’s first layered frameworks for AI regulation, combining the State Bar’s ethical guidance with the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA). The goal: balance innovation with accountability.
Why it matters: As AI startups and law firms multiply, clear rules will shape how fast—and responsibly—Texas grows as a national AI hub.
Need-to-know:
State Bar Opinion No. 705 defines AI use standards for lawyers
TRAIGA targets high-risk AI and creates an AI Council for oversight
Critics warn of red tape and startup barriers; enforcement remains unclear
Learn more here.
Applied Optoelectronics is expanding its Sugar Land operations with a $150 million investment to build new facilities for AI data center components, boosting domestic chip and fiber-optic manufacturing capacity.
Why it matters: Texas continues to attract AI supply-chain investment, positioning itself as a manufacturing hub for the data infrastructure powering large-scale models.
Need-to-know:
Expansion boosts U.S. production capacity more than 8x by year-end
Stock up over 55% in 90 days; long-term gains exceed 100%
Analysts debate valuation as shares trade above fair value estimate of $28.40
Learn more here.
That’s all for now, folks!
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