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First Week of December Recap: Texas AI Goes Big: From Driverless Deliveries to Digital Fire Detection

Three major AI deployments reshape Texas infrastructure this week

Author

AITX Team
December 06, 2024

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.

Before we jump into the regular news, a few housekeeping items:

  1. December AITX Meetups: 

    Our upcoming meetups:

  2. To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX calendar here.

  3. Check out our Community Directory:

    We recently started a 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.

In this week’s edition you’re getting:

5 Upcoming Events

3 AI Community Stories

1 Community Highlight

So let’s jump in!

UPCOMING EVENTS

  • When: Thursday, December 19 | 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM CST

  • Where: ACC - RGC 3000 1218 West Avenue · Austin, TX

  • What: Celebrate the end of the year with innovation, inspiration, and connection! Discover the latest in AI and LangChain technology and enjoy a festive atmosphere.

  • When: Friday, December 6 | 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM CST

  • Where: Unchained.Art 1601 E Cesar Chavez St APT 101 · Austin, TX

  • What: For our first-ever meetup, we’ll explore “Art in the Age of AI: Evolution or End?”.

  • When: Wednesday, December 11 | 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM CST

  • Where: Austin Austin · Austin, TX

  • What: Tech dinner group in your city for conversations about Tech AI & Startups and meet new friends.

    ​

  • When: Thursday, January 2 | 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM CST

  • Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St, 16th Floor · Austin, TX

  • What: Mini-hack session for developers all over the Austin area to build cool stuff related to AI.

  • When: Wednesday, January 15 | 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM CST

  • Where: Oracle 2300 Oracle Wy · Austin, TX

  • What: Deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and ML, food/drink, networking with speakers and fellow developers.

COMMUNITY STORIES

Autonomous vehicle company Nuro is significantly expanding its Houston footprint, boosting coverage by 70% while rolling out enhanced AI capabilities for its zero-occupant delivery vehicles.

Why it matters: This expansion makes Houston one of the most advanced testbeds for AI-powered autonomous delivery in the country, creating opportunities for local businesses and tech talent to shape the future of urban logistics.

Need-to-know:

  • Nuro's fleet has logged over 1 million autonomous miles with zero at-fault incidents, partnering with major brands like Kroger, FedEx, Uber Eats, and Domino's

  • New AI improvements enable multi-lane operations up to 35mph, better handling of emergency vehicles and construction zones, and night operations

  • The company is introducing Level 4 autonomous vehicles - the second-highest level of autonomy - powered by their latest AI platform, which requires no human intervention within designated service areas

Learn more here.

Xcel Energy is rolling out an ambitious AI-powered wildfire detection program across the Texas Panhandle, partnering with Pano AI to install over 50 camera stations equipped with advanced detection capabilities.

Why it matters: This deployment represents one of the largest AI-powered wildfire detection systems in Texas, demonstrating how AI can be used to solve critical public safety challenges while protecting billions in infrastructure investments

Need-to-know:

  • The system combines 360-degree HD cameras, AI smoke detection, and satellite data to continuously scan for fire threats, with cameras sweeping every minute

  • When potential fires are detected, human analysts verify and triangulate the location before immediately notifying 911 centers

  • The five-year program will cover 11 Texas counties, with initial installations focusing on highest-risk areas to be completed by 2025

  • Live video feeds will give fire departments real-time intelligence for faster response times

Learn more here.

Austin Takes Strategic Approach to AI Integration in City Services

The City of Austin is methodically expanding its use of artificial intelligence in municipal operations, building on a long-standing partnership with the University of Texas that began in 2019.

Why it matters: As Texas's tech capital, Austin's careful approach to municipal AI adoption could serve as a blueprint for other cities looking to modernize their services while maintaining public trust.

Need-to-know:

  • The city has been working closely with UT Austin since 2019 to identify and implement AI opportunities in municipal operations

  • Leaders are taking a measured approach, emphasizing getting implementation "right" over speed

  • This partnership demonstrates how public-academic collaboration can drive responsible AI adoption in government services

  • The initiative appears to be one of the most comprehensive municipal AI programs in Texas

Learn more here.

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COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT

This week, we're spotlighting Shawn David, a stellar engineer and local to Austin!

Here’s a bit of his background and current projects he shared with us:

I am a long time tinkerer, builder and lover of all things engineering.

I have a CS degree in systems engineering as well as a MBA, which I use to help businesses identify opportunities to 10x their humans using process optimization, automation and AI integration in to their workflows.

I am currently building a fully encapsulated offline model for a client to do product discovery and market research based on 10,000 chewy.com pdps using Llama-11B/ChromaDB for the embeddings,

Flask for the middleware, and Electron as the front end for portability.

Thank you Shawn for being a part of our community and sharing what you’re working on in AI for us to spotlight!

If you want to reach out to him you can learn more at automatetowin.com or find him on LinkedIn here.

That’s all for now, folks!

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