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!
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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.
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
So let’s jump in!
Community Events
When: Friday, July 31 | 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM CST
Where: Elasticsearch, Inc Austin, TX
What: aAhands on hack night where you’ll get stuck into a world of AI-powered workflows, web scraping and automation, and building context-rich AI agents.
When: Tuesday, August 11 | 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM CST
Where: Antler VC Austin, TX
What: We'll build a self-improving research loop that turns your own Claude Code session logs into a map of what you actually use, and what you're missing. You point an Apify Actor at the session files sitting on your disk, and it extracts a structured usage taxonomy from every run: the tools you call, the MCP servers you connect, the packages you import, the domains you touch. Then it cross-references that against what you already have installed, so you leave with a list of the gaps in your tooling rather than a list of things you own.
When: Wednesday, August 5 | 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM CST
Where: STATION Austin, Austin, TX
What: Join the Austin AI Developers Group for an exciting meetup featuring deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs, and Agents, plus hands-on code labs and workshops with industry speakers. Network with fellow developers and stay ahead of the curve in artificial intelligence-registration required at the event website.
When: Monday, August 17 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory, Austin, TX
What: Join Hack AI, a monthly meetup for Austin-area builders to explore and create with cutting-edge AI technology-featuring expert presentations, hands-on hacking sessions, AI trivia, free food and drinks, and plenty of networking opportunities for both technical and non-technical enthusiasts. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just curious about AI, come build, learn, and connect with fellow innovators in the Austin tech community!
When: Tuesday, August 4 | 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM CDT
Where: Windsor Park Branch, Austin Public Library, Austin, TX
What: Join us for a free, beginner-friendly workshop exploring how AI will reshape our world over the next 1-5 years-from jobs and crime to relationships and society. Through live demos and interactive forecasting exercises, you'll discover what leading experts predict about this rapidly advancing technology and what it means for your daily life.
COMMUNITY STORIES
Meta Platforms and BlackRock have announced a groundbreaking $14 billion joint venture to construct a massive 1-gigawatt AI data center in El Paso, Texas, set for completion in 2028. In a strategic financial maneuver, BlackRock-managed funds will own 80% of the facility while Meta leases the completed campus, effectively moving infrastructure costs off Meta's balance sheet while securing critical AI computing capacity. Meta will contribute $2.3 billion in land and construction assets and receive a $1 billion payout to balance the ownership structure.
Why it matters: This deal signals a major shift in how tech giants finance AI infrastructure, demonstrating that private investment firms are willing to pour billions into AI data centers, which could accelerate AI deployment across the industry and validate the long-term value of AI infrastructure investments.
Need to know:
BlackRock-managed funds will own 80% of the venture while Meta holds 20%, with Meta leasing the facility upon its 2028 completion
The project totals approximately $14 billion, with Meta contributing $2.3 billion in land and construction-in-progress assets plus receiving a $1 billion payout
The El Paso facility will have 1-gigawatt capacity, representing one of the largest AI-focused data centers planned to date
Tesla's Giga Texas facility is undergoing massive simultaneous expansion with two major projects: a dedicated Optimus humanoid robot factory on the North Campus and Phase II of the Cortex 2 AI infrastructure complex. Aerial drone footage from July 29, 2026 reveals active construction across the Austin campus, signaling Tesla's parallel investment in both robotics manufacturing and AI computing power.
Why it matters: This dual expansion demonstrates Tesla's commitment to scaling both humanoid robotics production and the AI infrastructure needed to train them, treating these as complementary capabilities rather than sequential developments.
Need to know:
The North Campus Optimus Factory is purpose-built to scale humanoid robot manufacturing beyond current limited production volumes at Fremont
Cortex 2 Phase II expands AI computing infrastructure that powers both Full Self-Driving development and Optimus robot training
Tesla is building both facilities simultaneously, indicating robotics and AI compute are being treated as parallel critical paths
Tesla's Q2 2026 earnings report revealed a massive expansion of AI training infrastructure at Gigafactory Texas, with compute capacity more than doubling from approximately 135 MW to 260 MW during the quarter. The aggressive scaling, powered by new supercomputing clusters, directly supports development of Tesla's next-generation autonomous driving models and solidifies Texas as a premier AI development hub.
Why it matters: This dramatic infrastructure investment demonstrates the scale of compute resources required for cutting-edge AI development and signals accelerating competition in the autonomous vehicle and AI training space.
Need to know:
Tesla's AI training compute capacity at Gigafactory Texas jumped from ~135 MW at end of Q1 2026 to ~260 MW by end of Q2 2026, nearly doubling in a single quarter
Total capacity has more than doubled since January 2026 and increased by over 125% compared to the ~115 MW installed at the end of 2025
The expansion was driven primarily by activation of new supercomputing clusters dedicated to training next-generation autonomous driving models
That’s all for now, folks!
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