This Month's Latest Tech News in College Station, TX - Sunday August 31st 2025 Edition

Weekly commentary: College Station's AI moment - opportunity meets responsibility: Texas A&M's Mays Business School has pushed that moment into the curriculum with a new Artificial Intelligence and Business minor launching as a Fall 2025 pilot, a compact, fully online set of five eight‑week courses that teach everything from generative AI and business storytelling to building multimodal agents (Texas A&M Mays AI and Business minor program page).

Across campus, an AI in the Arts minor is debuting this fall to probe ethics, authorship and creative practice (Texas A&M AI in the Arts minor announcement (PVFA)), underscoring that skill-building must pair with critical thinking.

For local professionals and students who want hands‑on, workplace-ready prompt and tool training, Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp offers a practical complement to academic study (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp - practical AI skills for the workplace), helping translate classroom concepts into real job impact.

“As the business world rapidly evolves through artificial intelligence, Mays Business School will lead higher education in preparing principled leaders who can harness these transformative technologies,” - Mays Business School Dean Dr. Nate Y. Sharp.

1) Texas A&M launches new Artificial Intelligence and Business minor: beginning Fall 2025 Mays Business School is rolling out a five‑course, fully online minor designed to teach students how to apply generative AI, machine learning and multimodal agents in real business settings - think practical prompt engineering, AI‑driven storytelling and low‑code agent deployment - through compact eight‑week sessions (Fall term runs Oct.

6–Dec. 7) with a pilot enrollment (200 seats per section) and expanded capacity in Spring 2026; the program is open to juniors and seniors with a 3.0+ GPA who've completed at least 12 TAMU credits, and students can start taking minor courses as soon as they declare it.

Read the full program details on the Mays Business School AI program page and the June news release for course descriptions and registration guidance: Mays Business School AI program page, June news release with course descriptions and registration guidance.

“AI is no longer just in science. It's not science fiction. It's here. It's pretty much in the boardroom. It's in the break room. It's on your phone.” - Shrihari Shridar, senior associate dean, Mays Business School (KBTX)

Mays confirms five‑course AI in Business minor with course names and start date: Mays Business School has locked in a compact, fully online five‑course minor - BUSN 450 Business Transformation with Generative AI; BUSN 455 Business Storytelling with AI; BUSN 460 Machine Learning, Predictive Modeling & Business Applications; BUSN 465 Business Applications of Deep Learning (Image, Audio, Video); and BUSN 470 Applied Natural Language Processing for Business Decisions - scheduled as eight‑week modules in a Fall 2025 pilot (Oct.

6–Dec. 7) with sizable initial capacity (about 200 seats per section) and eligibility for juniors and seniors who meet program criteria; the move arrives as universities scramble to scale AI training to meet booming demand and reflects the kind of curriculum design experts say business schools should use to blend technical fluency and ethical judgment.

AI forecasting maps pollution risks after severe weather: recent work shows that the same AI advances sharpening flood and sub‑seasonal weather forecasts are also being used to map pollution and public‑health risks that follow storms, helping cities and insurers target rapid response.

Opinion and research into AI‑driven climate risk forecasting detail how machine learning can fuse satellite observations, high‑resolution weather models and novel sensor feeds to flag where runoff, industrial emissions or smoke will concentrate after heavy rains or wind events (PLOS Climate opinion: AI climate risk forecasting study).

Startups and researchers are already producing hyperlocal outputs - for example, street‑by‑street flood predictions in minutes - that illustrate how specialist models can be repurposed to predict pollutant transport and exposure zones for emergency planners and farmers (Insurance Journal: AI weather models enable hyperlocal forecasts).

Initiatives such as ECMWF's AI Weather Quest are pushing sub‑seasonal skill that helps extend those insights from hours to weeks, giving communities more time to preempt contamination hotspots and protect vulnerable populations (ECMWF AI Weather Quest initiative).

One vivid takeaway: where legacy models spoke at county scale, AI systems are beginning to point to individual blocks that need sandbags or air monitors tomorrow - a shift with immediate, measurable rescue and health benefits.

“AI is a great tool to enhance the classical way of modeling, but not fully replace it.” - Martin Fengler, Meteomatics

4) 'Cassie' AI avatar pilots to cut healthcare administrative burden: Texas A&M and startup Humanate Digital are piloting an emotionally intelligent virtual medical receptionist named Cassie to streamline front‑desk work - checking in patients, requesting records and guiding people through paperwork - so clinicians can spend more time on care.

Built with large language models and NVIDIA‑assisted simulations, Cassie reads facial expressions, shifts tone, and even tells a dad joke when appropriate; she speaks more than 100 languages (including American Sign Language) and is already testing in clinics, earning Humanate the grand prize at the 2025 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition.

Early feedback, especially from older patients, suggests the avatar can make confusing intake flows feel simpler and more human, while its 24/7 reliability promises relief for roles with 200–300% annual turnover.

For College Station and nearby health systems, Cassie is a reminder that practical AI - when paired with thoughtful design and local partnerships - can shave hours off admin tasks and redirect scarce staff time back to patients (read the Texas A&M profile and Medical Economics coverage for details).

“We're not trying to replace doctors or nurses. We're focused on the administrative side - tasks that are repetitive, time‑consuming and not the best use of a clinician's time.” - Dr. Mark Benden

5) AI gaming simulation for pipeline emergency training: Texas A&M's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center (MKO) and EnerSys are building a multiplayer, AI-driven training platform - backed by PHMSA and administered by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station - that converts rare pipeline failures into dynamic, cloud-based simulations so operators can rehearse first-time crises in a safe setting; read the Texas A&M feature for details on how MKO supplies mathematical models and industry partners feed real-world data into the game (Texas A&M feature: AI and gaming platform for pipeline emergency training).

The project also taps ThreatGEN's AutoTableTop and generative AI to create unpredictable scenario injects and measurable team outcomes, aiming to improve communication, decision-making and response speed when incidents do occur (Industrial Cyber report: ThreatGEN secures PHMSA funding for AI-driven pipeline incident training).

Trial scenarios are slated to begin by year's end, offering a practical, scalable way to turn tabletop theory into hands-on team practice - so that when the unlikely happens, responses are faster, clearer and less costly.

“In using this multiplayer gaming platform, it should become very much like actually working with pipelines,” - Russel Treat, EnerSys Corporation CEO

6) Restb.ai integrates Bryan‑College Station MLS, boosting local real‑estate tech: the Bryan‑College Station Multiple Listing Service has joined a wave of national MLS integrations that bring Restb.ai's computer‑vision tools to the region, giving roughly 1,800 local subscribers faster, smarter listing workflows and richer search for buyers and agents alike - think automatic field autofill, photo compliance checks and AI‑generated captions/alt‑text that improve accessibility and syndication (details in the Restb.ai MLS announcement: Restb.ai MLS announcement).

For College Station this is a practical upgrade: less manual typing for agents, fewer listing errors, and more discoverable homes in searches - the same suite of features that recent rollouts have used to scan images, populate forms and surface visual property traits across large MLS platforms (WavGroup coverage of Restb.ai deployments), a small technical change with an outsized impact on day‑to‑day brokerage work.

“These MLSs are embracing artificial intelligence to deliver real, tangible value to their members,” - Dominik Pogorzelski, President MLS at Restb.ai

7) Energy‑efficient "brain‑inspired" AI research and data‑center energy risks: Texas A&M and collaborators are pushing a hardware‑first answer to AI's mounting electricity bill with a “Super‑Turing” approach that folds learning and memory together - mimicking synapses so models adapt on the fly instead of shuttling huge datasets between chips.

Researchers demonstrated the idea with a tiny synstor circuit that let a drone learn to navigate in seconds while the device sipped power measured in nanowatts, suggesting orders‑of‑magnitude savings compared with conventional models; read the Texas A&M Super‑Turing AI profile for context (Texas A&M Super‑Turing AI profile) and the detailed synstor demonstration and lab results in The Debrief (The Debrief synstor demonstration and lab results).

The work reframes a local planning question: if growing model size means more campus or regional data centers (and gigawatts of demand), then brain‑inspired hardware could curb costs, emissions and the pressure to build ever‑larger facilities - turning a single vivid fact into a planning priority: the human brain runs on ~20 watts while current data centers pull power in gigawatts, a gap this research aims to close.

“These data centers are consuming power in gigawatts, whereas our brain consumes 20 watts. That's 1 billion watts compared to just 20.” - Suin Yi

8) Nvidia plans AI supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas: NVIDIA's April announcement signals a major onshoring push - partnering with Foxconn and Wistron to build full AI supercomputer systems in Texas (Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth) while TSMC handles Blackwell chip production in Arizona - commissioning more than a million square feet of space and aiming to ramp mass production in the next 12–15 months.

The effort isn't just about boxes and chips; NVIDIA frames these systems as the engines of new “AI factories,” a shift that could drive up to half a trillion dollars of U.S. AI infrastructure output over four years and help seed “gigawatt” data centers, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and tighter domestic supply chains.

For College Station planners, that means nearby manufacturing and supply-chain investments could reshape regional hiring and data‑center demand - so the question becomes how to connect local tech training and grid planning to a fast‑moving industrial tide.

Read the NVIDIA Texas AI manufacturing announcement and the SupplyChainBrain overview of NVIDIA Texas AI manufacturing plans for background and local implications.

“The engines of the world's AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time. Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.” - Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA

9) Fermi America and Texas Tech propose massive AI + energy campus in Panhandle: the TTU System and Fermi America announced a bold plan to build the HyperGrid - an Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus on roughly 5,800 acres near Amarillo that would house up to 18 million square feet of data centers and deliver as much as 11 gigawatts of IT capacity using natural gas, solar, wind and on‑site nuclear (the developers say the site could put the first 1 GW online by 2026).

Backers frame HyperGrid as a single, power‑defined solution for hyperscale AI - a campus that could, according to reporting, cost as much as $300 billion and ultimately generate enough energy to supply over 8.2 million homes - while promising internships, workforce pipelines and university research space that tie Texas Tech students directly into the buildout.

Read the university announcement for program details and local context and coverage of the project's scale and implications for jobs and energy strategy.

“The Texas Tech University System is proud to partner with Fermi America on this historic endeavor,” - Chancellor Tedd L. Mitchell, M.D.

10) Cognigy relocates U.S. HQ to Plano, signaling regional AI hiring trends: In April 2025 Cognigy shifted its U.S. headquarters from San Francisco to Plano as part of a broader push to deepen U.S. hiring and customer engagement, a move noted by local coverage and company filings that highlights Texas' growing appeal for AI firms (No Jitter coverage of Cognigy HQ move and NICE acquisition, Dallas Business Journal report on Cognigy Plano headquarters).

The company - founded in Düsseldorf and serving more than 1,000 global brands - arrived with a modest initial footprint (a reported 5,000 sq ft lease with rights to expand) and roughly 50 U.S. staff out of ~300 worldwide, but public statements and recruiting listings show plans to roughly double U.S. headcount in the near term, a pattern mirrored by other European AI firms relocating northward to tap Dallas–Fort Worth talent and lower operating costs (D Magazine analysis of Cognigy lease and expansion plans).

For College Station and nearby communities, Cognigy's move is another sign that North Texas is becoming a regional on‑ramp for AI jobs - small offices today, rapid hiring tomorrow.

“Dallas offers the perfect mix of innovation, energy, and opportunity.” - Philipp Heltewig

Conclusion: What College Station should prioritize next - double down on practical AI literacy, pipeline-to-market support, and industry connections so local talent can ride the incoming wave rather than get left behind.

Texas A&M's entry into OpenAI's NexGenAI consortium positions the university - the only Texas school in the program - to lead campus-wide generative AI literacy and ethics training (OpenAI NexGenAI consortium partnership at Texas A&M), but that curricular leadership needs matching funding pathways and workforce pipelines: the university's Advancing Discovery to Market (ADM) program is the practical vehicle to de-risk discoveries for commercialization (note the looming pre-proposal deadline) and should be paired with TAMIDS industry affiliate efforts to scale internships and co‑designed capstones (Advancing Discovery to Market (ADM) program, TAMIDS industry partnerships and affiliate programs).

Equally important is broadening access to hands-on, job-ready training so nontechnical staff and local professionals can apply prompts, tools and governance in real workplaces; short, employer-focused options like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (15 weeks, practical prompt and tool training) are a ready complement to academic offerings (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration).

The strategic trio - education, commercialization, and accessible reskilling - gives College Station a clear roadmap to capture jobs, retain talent, and keep AI development responsible and locally beneficial.

“Generative AI is not just about generating text or images. It's about empowering people across disciplines to use this technology thoughtfully and responsibly. That starts with the education of knowing how the AI tools work, when to use them and how to assess their strengths and limitations.” - Dr. Sabit Ekin