IntoTexas AI Podcast

A Sugar Land manufacturer more than doubled its revenue in a year, then told investors its U.S. expansion will be late. The reason: it can't get the electricity in time. Meanwhile, at the southern tip of Texas, SpaceX plans to build its own power plant.

That's where Texas AI is right now. Everybody needs power. Some companies are waiting in line for it, and some have decided the line is optional.

In this episode, Shannon Belew looks at how long that line really is. Oncor alone has 795 large-customer requests waiting, with data centers asking for roughly fifteen times what every other industry wants combined. Statewide, the Governor's office put the queue at about 474 gigawatts, and Texas has paused data center permits and grid connections while it audits which projects are real.

Then, the workarounds. SpaceX's proposed gas plant and "super-compute facility" at Starbase, with an estimated $24 billion for the first phases. AZIO AI's off-grid campus in Live Oak County. Houston's Baker Hughes selling 43 gas turbines to an unnamed tech company. A startup called Mavria building data centers in a factory, starting with a demonstration unit in Houston. And a turbine market so backed up that buyers are hunting for used machines and whole power plants.

None of it is  free. Nearly every workaround runs on natural gas, a private power plant still has neighbors, and going off the grid doesn't clearly get you out of the permit office.

Most Texas businesses aren't about to order their own turbines. So the episode closes with what to do if you're in that group: ask about power before you sign the lease, find out what "on time" actually depends on, put a price on being late, and look hard at whether there's business for you on the supply side of this buildout.

Three dates to watch: December 9, when the Starbase City Commission takes up SpaceX's tax request. Later in December, when the state's grid audit is due. And January, when the new Legislature returns.

IntoTexas AI covers how artificial intelligence is reshaping Texas business, hosted by Shannon Belew, co-founder of IntoTexas.

Subscribe for new episodes, and learn more at IntoTexas.com.

#TexasAI #DataCenters #ERCOT #TexasGrid #AIInfrastructure #EnergyTransition #SpaceX #Starbase #BakerHughes #NaturalGas #TexasBusiness #Manufacturing #IntoTexasAI

Three AI deals with Texas ties landed within about a week of each other, and each shows AI money at a very different stage.

Dallas-based Disruptive raised a $10 billion flagship fund, the largest venture fund in Texas history, to back roughly 10 late-stage companies with checks of up to $1 billion each. Crusoe lined up a $700 million facility with Neuberger Specialty Finance to buy behind-the-meter gas generators for its AI data centers. And near Silverton in Briscoe County, Soluna and Applied Digital are working to close a partnership on a planned 50-megawatt AI data center that would run on wind and grid power. That deal still has to clear a tax abatement vote, signed documents, and a December deadline.

In this episode of IntoTexas AI, Shannon Belew looks past the headline numbers to what the documents actually say: who’s carrying the risk, what the money really buys, and what still has to happen before anyone sees a return. She also covers what this means for founders competing against billion-dollar checks, where Texas suppliers fit in the physical buildout, and why a letter of intent, a signed lease, and an operating facility are three very different things.

If you’re a Texas business leader trying to make sense of the AI buildout, this one’s for you.

Subscribe to IntoTexas AI for more on how AI is reshaping business across Texas.

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AI can help emergency teams process information faster. But when lives are on the line, who owns the decision—and how do you build trust before disaster strikes?

Recorded at Disasters Expo USA in Houston, this episode of IntoTexas AI features Rob Borse, whose nearly 30-year career includes Dallas Fire-Rescue and city government. He joins host Shannon Belew to discuss where AI can strengthen emergency preparedness and response, why human judgment remains essential, and what responsible adoption requires.

From flood mapping and resource forecasting to sorting incoming reports in an emergency operations center, we explore how AI can support faster, better-informed decisions. We also discuss the risks of overreliance, the importance of public trust, and why automating a flawed process can simply make a bad process run faster.

For emergency managers, public-sector leaders, and businesses building their own resilience plans, the starting question is the same: What problem are you trying to solve?

Explore more IntoTexas AI episodes: IntoTexas AI Podcast | Texas Business & AI Insights

Episode 51 | Hosted by Shannon Belew

#EmergencyManagement #ArtificialIntelligence #DisasterPreparedness #AITrust #IntoTexasAI

For most of us, the weather forecast decides whether we grab a jacket. For energy traders, like the ones James Caron works with, it moves millions of dollars a day. Can AI weather models make both kinds of calls more reliable?

Recorded live at Disasters Expo USA in Houston, this episode of the IntoTexas AI podcast features James Caron, a certified consulting meteorologist and Director of Meteorological Operations at Atmospheric G2. James started as a weather officer in the U.S. Air Force, then worked as a commodity meteorologist on Wall Street. Today he forecasts for the energy traders who make Texas the center of that market.

We start with Winter Storm Uri: what it did to the grid and to energy prices, and why lead time is the thing that matters most next time. Then we look at how AI weather models work and why they’re so much cheaper to run than legacy supercomputer models like the GFS and ECMWF. James explains why he thinks Google DeepMind outperformed the traditional models on both track and intensity for Hurricane Isaias.

He’s also candid about how we evaluate new models. He names the AI models he trusts, including Google DeepMind, Microsoft Aurora, and ECMWF’s AIFS ensemble. And he says that when a vendor touts its own “proprietary AI” weather model, it should prove itself before you rely on it. If you’re in emergency management, energy, logistics, or running a Texas business that weather can disrupt, this one’s worth your time.

Hashtags: #IntoTexasAI #AIForecasting #WeatherAI #GoogleDeepMind #ERCOT #EnergyTrading #EmergencyManagement #DisasterResponse #GovTech

A cyberattack turns supermarket refrigeration systems against their owners. A hurricane puts AI weather forecasts to the test. Both raise a practical question: How do we keep essential services running when disaster strikes?

From the Disasters Expo in Houston, Shannon Belew explores how artificial intelligence is being used—and tested—to help communities and businesses prepare, respond and recover.

This episode examines Google DeepMind’s role in Hurricane Isaias forecasting, new MIT–Microsoft research on longer-range weather predictions, Texas A&M’s disaster-response tools, and GiveDirectly’s use of AI-assisted damage assessment to help target hurricane cash relief.

We also look at the limits: why connected equipment still needs basic cybersecurity, why emergency information must be checked, and why human judgment remains essential.

Subscribe to IntoTexas AI for upcoming interviews from the Disasters Expo and more on how AI is reshaping Texas business and everyday life.

#ArtificialIntelligence #DisasterPreparedness #DisasterRecovery #EmergencyManagement #Cybersecurity #TexasAI #IntoTexasAI

The next big AI advantage may not be a smarter model. It may be AI that understands exactly how your industry works.

In this episode of the IntoTexas AI podcast, Shannon Belew looks at three Texas companies betting on specialized, industry-specific AI: UpSmith in Dallas, building AI for HVAC, plumbing and electrical contractors; Scaffold in Austin, connecting the systems behind residential construction; and Circuit in Austin, turning decades of manufacturing know-how into answers technicians can use in seconds.

We also look at the other end of the spectrum: HubSpot's restructuring around delivering outcomes with AI, and what happens when the companies that built the last generation of business software collide with the ones built for this one.

Plus new Gartner research on where agentic AI ROI is coming from, and Dallas Fed data on how deeply Texas companies are really using AI.

If you run a business, you'll come away with three practical moves for deciding where specialized AI belongs in your company.

Read more on the IntoTexas AI blog: AI Business Insights Blog | IntoTexas Subscribe for weekly AI news and strategy for Texas businesses.

#VerticalAI #AIAgents #TexasAI #EnterpriseAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AIForBusiness #IntoTexas

Texas wants the AI buildout, but who pays for it? This week on IntoTexas AI, I break down the launch of the Lone Star Infrastructure Coalition, the industry's push to win over Texas communities on data centers. I also cover Crusoe's wind-powered Google campus in the Panhandle and Kyndryl's new AI Innovation Lab in Frisco.

Then I bring you what I learned at The AI Conference in San Francisco, where more than 5,000 builders and leaders from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, NVIDIA and more gathered to talk about what's actually working in AI right now.

You'll hear takeaways from five standout talks:

Peter Norvig (Stanford HAI) on what comes after the AI breakthrough, and why AI is still "jagged"
Jonathan LaCour (CDW) on why 88% of companies use AI but fewer than 7% see real financial results
Anthony Stevens (IBM) on agent security and the "harness" that keeps AI agents in check
Di Jin (Nebius) on why post-training is the new competitive moat
Chase Norton (Faros) on when open models are good enough, and when frontier AI is worth the premium

The big theme: the companies that win won't be the ones with the fanciest model. They'll be the ones that put AI inside real workflows, control costs, build in guardrails and turn their own business knowledge into an advantage. That goes for every mid-market business in Texas.

Deeper dives on each talk are coming soon on the blog.

🔗 Learn more: IntoTexas.com

#TexasAI #AIConference #ArtificialIntelligence #AIAgents #OpenSourceAI #DataCenters #EnterpriseAI #AIStrategy #TexasBusiness #IntoTexasAI

What if a machine could determine what something is made of—not from a barcode, shape or color, but by reading its chemical fingerprint?

Si-Ware Systems has opened its new U.S. headquarters and Physical AI Innovation Center in Austin. The move brings greater attention to spectral sensing, a technology that combines specialized sensors, data models and AI to identify material composition and condition beyond what an ordinary camera—or the human eye—can see.

In this episode of IntoTexas AI, Shannon Belew explains how spectral sensing works, where it is already being used in manufacturing, recycling, pharmaceuticals and agriculture, and why reliable calibration data is critical to making the technology useful.

We also explore whether spectral imaging could eventually improve food-safety screening, where the limitations remain, and how Texas companies including Spectral AI, Apex Spectral Technology, Raytheon and Nanohmics are applying related technologies across healthcare, energy, aerospace and defense.

For Texas manufacturers and processors, the business opportunity is practical: detect problems sooner, reduce destructive testing and make quality-control decisions without waiting for laboratory results.

#SpectralSensing #PhysicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #SiWare #TexasAI #AustinTech #ManufacturingAI #HyperspectralImaging #Robotics #AdvancedManufacturing #IntoTexasAI

Texas asked its data centers a simple question — how much water are you using? Most didn't answer. For three years running, fewer than one in three data centers surveyed by the state have returned a required water-use report.

Now Governor Abbott is connecting that failure to respond to something companies can't ignore: access to the power grid.

In this episode, we break down why compliance has been so low, who actually has the authority to enforce it, and how Texas is potentially building a new approval framework that ties together water, power, ownership, and community impact before a single data center gets to plug in.

We also look at the community backlash driving this — from a packed town hall in rural Bastrop County to a Facebook group that hit 43,000 members in under four months — plus fresh insight from this week's Dallas Regional Chamber Tomorrow Summit on how Americans really feel about the AI infrastructure boom.

If you're building, investing in, or just living near Texas's AI economy, this is the episode that connects the dots.

IntoTexas AI is hosted by Shannon Belew, co-founder of IntoTexas

#IntoTexasAI #TexasDataCenters #AIInfrastructure #ERCOT #TexasWater #DataCenters #AIpolicy #TexasBusiness #PowerGrid 

Could artificial intelligence help aging parents remain independent longer—and give family caregivers some much-needed relief?

In this episode of IntoTexas AI, Shannon Belew examines how Texas-connected companies are applying AI to elder care. Austin-based Sensi.AI uses audio technology to identify possible falls, calls for help and changes in behavior. Fort Worth-based NtelCare uses radar, LiDAR and machine learning to detect risky movement without conventional cameras or microphones.

These systems may help caregivers respond sooner, but they also raise difficult questions about privacy, consent and control. Who chooses the technology? Who receives the data? And what happens when the person being monitored has dementia or can no longer provide meaningful consent?

The episode also explores America’s growing caregiver shortage, Texas’s aging population and the work underway at UTMB Health’s Texas Healthy Aging and Technology Initiative.

AI may help older adults remain independent longer. The question is how much monitoring families—and aging parents themselves—are willing to accept in return.

#ArtificialIntelligence #ElderCare #AgingInPlace #Caregiving #TexasAI #AgeTech #SeniorCare #AIHealthcare #Privacy #IntoTexasAI