This Month's Latest Tech News in McAllen, TX - Saturday May 31st 2025 Edition

May 2025 marked extraordinary momentum for McAllen and Texas as a whole, reflecting rapid advances in AI policy, tech investment, and economic leadership. The Texas House approved a landmark bill poised to create one of the “nation's most robust, outcomes-based AI regulatory frameworks,” with new rules banning government use of AI for social scoring and regulating biometric identification and discrimination risks.

“AI regulation is not a partisan issue and can benefit all citizens,” said Jai Jaisimha of Transparency Coalition, emphasizing the initiative's balanced approach to safety and innovation.

At the same time, Texas is riding a surge of technology investment, boasting $61 billion in semiconductor projects and major data center expansions set to generate thousands of jobs across the state.

Notably, the business climate remains top-ranked, with Texas adding 125,000 new business entities in 2024 and maintaining a robust 3.9% growth outlook for 2025.

For more on the sweeping Texas Responsible AI Governance Act, see Pluribus News' in-depth analysis of Texas' AI bill, and for a look at the capital flooding into high-tech sectors, review ConstructConnect's report on new tech investments shaping Texas.

For broader economic trends and what keeps Texas at the top of business rankings, visit the Texas 2025 Economic Outlook.

The Texas Legislature has finalized House Bill 149, now known as the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA), marking one of the nation's most comprehensive frameworks for regulating artificial intelligence use in both government and private sectors.

The bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly (146-3) and the Senate unanimously, introduces strong transparency measures, bans state agencies from deploying AI systems for “social scores,” and prohibits algorithms from engaging in political viewpoint discrimination or unlawful bias against protected classes.

Read more about the Texas bill seeking to regulate AI use in the state.

Notably, carve-outs were negotiated for hospital districts and universities, and insurance and federally insured financial institutions are exempt due to existing compliance requirements.

For details, see the Transparency Coalition AI legislative update from May 30, 2025.

The Act grants exclusive enforcement authority to the Texas Attorney General and introduces civil penalties for violations, while also establishing an AI Council and a regulatory sandbox for innovation.

Fiscal analysis projects a net cost exceeding $25 million initially and $10 million annually, driven by oversight staffing and technology investment. Additional analysis is available at Texas Policy Research on HB 149.

As the law takes effect January 1, 2026, critics continue to debate its balance between innovation and public safeguards, but Texas is positioned as a national leader in state-level AI accountability and consumer protection.

Key Provision	Description
Prohibits social scoring	Government agencies barred from ranking citizens by AI-generated social scores
Anti-discrimination	Illegal for AI systems to discriminate against protected classes or suppress political speech
Enforcement & Oversight	Attorney General granted sole enforcement authority; violations result in civil penalties

Texas is rapidly expanding its AI-powered law enforcement surveillance capabilities, raising deep concerns about privacy and oversight. Through Governor Abbott's $11 billion Operation Lone Star, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has deployed a broad arsenal of advanced tools - ranging from AI systems that analyze billions of images for facial recognition to platforms like Tangles, which scrape the open, deep, and dark web and enable warrantless tracking of cell phones via geofencing details on DPS's AI surveillance arsenal.

A new wave of software, such as Veritone's “Track,” circumvents existing facial recognition bans by profiling individuals using attributes like clothing, body shape, and hair style, allowing persistent tracking even when faces are obscured see how Track skirts recognition regulations.

Comprehensive tools in Texas include license plate readers (Flock Safety), mobile device forensics (Cellebrite), and AI-reviewed wildlife cameras on the border, with overall contracts and budget allocations exceeding $50 million over five years.

Despite these investments, legislative attempts to regulate such surveillance - such as the recent House Bill 149 - have largely been watered down, leaving few enforceable guardrails.

As summarized by Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, “The state is collecting billions of images, most of them of innocent people,” highlighting bipartisan calls for greater accountability.

“Technology increasingly threatens both national security and civil liberties,” noted David Dunmoyer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, while civil rights advocates emphasize that warrantless AI surveillance “risks eroding reasonable privacy expectations” and turning Texas into a police surveillance state.

For detailed breakdowns of software contracts, privacy risks, and advocacy responses, review the in-depth reporting from the Texas Observer and the investigative analysis on DPS's acquisition of Tangles.

Here is a summary table of key tools and contracts:

AI Surveillance Tool	Function	Recent Contract Value
Tangles (by PenLink/Cobwebs)	Web/Dark Web scraping, geofencing, cell location without warrant	$5.3M (5 years)
Clearview AI	Facial recognition across 40B+ images	$1.2M (through 2030)
Operation Drawbridge	9,000+ border cameras, AI image analysis	$17M+ (expansion contracts)

Nvidia is set to transform the U.S. tech manufacturing landscape with the construction of two massive AI supercomputer factories in Texas, partnering with Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in Dallas, as part of a nationwide initiative to produce its next-generation Blackwell-powered systems entirely on American soil.

Over one million square feet of manufacturing space have been commissioned, with mass production poised to ramp up within 12 to 15 months, supporting an estimated $500 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years and the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

These “AI factories” will leverage advanced robotics and digital twin technologies - such as NVIDIA Omniverse and Isaac GR00T - to automate and optimize operations.

As Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang noted,

“The engines of the world's AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time… [which] helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.”

With additional investment proposals like a $687 million supercomputer plant in Fort Worth under city consideration, Texas is cementing its role in the future of AI manufacturing and American tech leadership.

To explore further, see detailed coverage in NVIDIA's official announcement on U.S.-built AI supercomputers, learn about state-level economic incentives and broader supply chain impacts in Business Facilities' report on Nvidia's Texas expansion, and get insights into the Fort Worth project in the Fort Worth Report's economic development update.

Location	Partner	Size (sq ft)	Estimated Investment	Status
Houston, TX	Foxconn	Part of 1M+ sq ft	Not specified	Under construction
Dallas, TX	Wistron	Part of 1M+ sq ft	$687M (potential in Fort Worth)	Under construction
Phoenix, AZ	TSMC (Blackwell Chips)	Not specified	Not specified	Production started

The 2025 MXLAN International Economic Summit, held on May 9 at the McAllen Convention Center, spotlighted how artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are shaping the city's economic future and workforce strategies.

Representatives from local government, the Texas Workforce Commission, higher education, and industry explored collaborative approaches for upskilling and reskilling to address the region's skills gap, and panels highlighted AI applications in manufacturing, supply chains, and everyday job functions.

In her address, McAllen Chamber and Economic Development Corporation President Elizabeth Suarez affirmed the city's proactive stance:

“McAllen is not waiting for the future, we're building it. AI is shaping how we work, live, and grow, and this summit proved that McAllen is ready to lead.”

Speakers like Alps Alpine's Bob Anderson underscored AI's role in enhancing - rather than replacing - jobs, while educators discussed efforts to integrate AI literacy across all ages.

For a look at the summit's impact and the city's tech-driven ambitions, review the full event coverage from Valley Business Report's AI summit highlights and Texas Border Business's MXLAN event summary.

Keynotes and sessions also addressed innovation in business and workforce readiness, drawing a broad mix of local business leaders, educators, and policymakers, as featured on HERE San Antonio's MXLAN summit report.

The summit's collaborative focus underscores McAllen's emergence as a Rio Grande Valley hub for tech-enabled growth and cross-industry innovation.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) has secured a $2.8 million National Science Foundation (NSF) ExpandAI grant to lead the ARISE (AI Research and Innovation for Smart Environments) partnership with Georgia Tech, a transformative leap for regional AI education and research capacity.

The initiative will introduce specialized AI courses, strengthen UTRGV's doctoral computer science program, and provide hands-on training to students and junior faculty through interdisciplinary collaboration.

The ARISE project's research, much of it conducted in the Multiple Autonomous Robot Systems (MARS) Lab, focuses on developing AI-driven robotics for proactive infrastructure monitoring - such as drones programmed for autonomous inspection and real-time crack detection on wind turbine blades, highways, and runways.

Dr. Constantine Tarawneh, project lead, emphasized,

“This partnership allows us to significantly grow our AI capacity and develop advanced technologies that improve the safety and reliability of infrastructure… creating a pipeline of professionals to meet industry demand in AI, robotics, and infrastructure monitoring.”

Key infrastructure for this expansion includes two new high-performance Lambda Station supercomputers, each valued at $30,000, supporting research and providing lasting resources for current and future students.

The collaborative approach, with Georgia Tech mentoring UTRGV's faculty and research teams, aims to make AI training and workforce development more accessible across South Texas.

For a detailed breakdown of the ARISE project objectives and key personnel, see the official UTRGV-Georgia Tech AI research partnership announcement.

More about the grant's impact on UTRGV's growing STEM leadership can be found in The Monitor report on UTRGV AI research expansion, and further programmatic context is available in the NSF's overview of the NSF ExpandAI capacity-building initiative.

Visa has launched its groundbreaking Intelligent Commerce APIs, partnering with major AI developers like OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity to enable a new generation of agentic AI shopping experiences where digital agents not only find deals but securely complete purchases for consumers.

This initiative allows users to upload card credentials via Visa's payment passkeys, with secure tokenization and customizable parameters such as spending limits to protect personal and financial security as detailed by PYMNTS.

AI agents can now seamlessly manage complex tasks - like planning trips, booking accommodations, and making purchases - while Visa streams real-time transaction signals to safeguard against fraud.

Mark Nelsen, Visa's global head of consumer products, emphasized,

“We're letting AI developers and engineers use the Visa network to allow AI agents to find, and buy, on [the consumer's] behalf in a seamless and safe way.”

The move is part of a broader industry trend, with Mastercard and other fintech leaders joining a growing ecosystem focused on secure, autonomous shopping solutions as reported by TechCrunch.

Visa's reach now spans over 4.8 billion payment credentials and 150 million merchant locations across 200+ countries, accelerating a shift to frictionless commerce powered by trusted AI according to Visa's corporate site.

This agentic commerce transformation promises a more convenient and protected experience, with consumers retaining ultimate control through preset guardrails, robust dispute resolution, and the security of Visa's proprietary fraud models.

Tighter U.S. export controls on advanced AI chips have delivered a staggering blow to Nvidia, AMD, and their global supply chains, as the latest regulations force these chipmakers to halt major sales to China and pivot their strategies.

Nvidia disclosed a $5.5 billion inventory write-down for its H20 AI chip, with analysts warning of a $15 billion revenue impact over 12 months, while AMD faces possible charges of up to $800 million and significant uncertainty about future access to the Chinese market (Nvidia, AMD warn of major financial hits from U.S. chip export controls).

While the U.S. Department of Commerce has rescinded the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule, it simultaneously strengthened export controls, committing to keep sensitive technology from adversaries and urging suppliers to adapt to complex new requirements (Export controls reshaped under new U.S. policy).

According to recent financials, Nvidia's China market share has plummeted from 95% to 50% due to these rules, threatening long-term dominance and pushing both companies toward the development of stripped-down, compliant chips for the Chinese market starting July (Nvidia, AMD introduce modified AI chips for China).

The table below summarizes the major impacts:

Company	Affected Chips	Financial Impact	Strategic Response
Nvidia	H20, A800, H800	$5.5B write-down, $15B revenue hit (est.)	Develop new, compliant chips for China; expand U.S. manufacturing
AMD	MI250, MI308, MI300	Up to $800M in potential charges	Alternative chip solutions, risk of lost opportunities in China

“Losing access to the China AI accelerator market, which we believe will grow to nearly $50bn, would have a material adverse impact on our business going forward and benefit our foreign competitors in China and worldwide,” said Nvidia CFO Collette Kress.

GrubMarket's recent acquisition of Delta Fresh Produce cements McAllen's role as a key hub in the rapidly evolving, AI-powered fresh produce supply chain. Delta Fresh, established in 1928 and a longstanding supplier to grocery giants like Walmart and Kroger, major restaurant chains such as Subway and Chipotle, and distributors including Sysco, operates an 80,000-square-foot facility in McAllen, TX - crucial for seamless cross-border distribution.

This integration enables Delta Fresh to leverage GrubMarket's fleet of proprietary AI-driven platforms, including WholesaleWare (ERP for inventory and financials), GrubAssist (AI for supply chain insights), Orders IO (e-commerce), and GrubPay (digital payments), streamlining operations and boosting year-round reliability.

As Atanasio Panousopoulos, Delta Fresh's director, states,

"Joining GrubMarket marks an exciting new chapter for Delta Fresh Produce. GrubMarket's commitment to AI and innovation aligns with our vision to scale our operations and strengthen customer relationships."

Delta Fresh's reputation for exceeding food safety standards, including frequent random audits and Primus GFS certification, remains intact under current leadership, promising continuity and excellence.

The table below summarizes Delta Fresh's operational scale and McAllen's strategic significance:

Warehouse Size	Location	Distribution Reach	Core Products
80,000 sq. ft.	McAllen, TX	Nationwide (U.S.)	Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, grapes, watermelons

The acquisition, highlighted in GrubMarket's official news release on Delta Fresh Produce acquisition, was reported by FreshPlaza's coverage of GrubMarket expanding produce distribution with a focus on technology integration, and by Mexico Business News article on cross-border supply chain implications for the cross-border supply chain implications, ensuring McAllen's ongoing influence in international fresh produce logistics.

As sweeping new tariffs reshape global supply chains, Big Tech firms are navigating a landscape of rising costs, regulatory uncertainty, and shifting consumer demand.

In Texas, business activity is slowing, with 59% of firms reporting negative effects from tariffs - up sharply from previous years - according to a Federal Reserve survey on Texas' economic outlook.

Larger technology companies like Apple and Nvidia are mitigating costs by diversifying manufacturing into India and Vietnam and securing temporary exemptions for some products, yet still face significant exposure; Apple, for example, anticipates nearly $900 million in quarterly tariff-related costs and expects most U.S. iPhones sold in Q2 2025 to be India-made (S&P Global's analysis of tariff uncertainty for tech companies).

Meanwhile, tech retailers and manufacturers are increasingly passing costs to consumers - Best Buy, Walmart, and Costco have raised prices, while some producers like Home Depot aim to absorb costs internally.

The table below summarizes recent survey data on Texas firms' responses to tariffs:

Impact Aspect	Sept. 2018 (%)	June 2019 (%)	April 2025 (%)
Increase in input costs	44	36	67
Increase in selling prices	28	22	47
Decrease in profit margins	NA	29	58
Decrease in production/revenue	19	17	41
Decrease in company outlook	20	28	60

Looking ahead, retail giants and electronics brands cite tariffs as a leading driver for price hikes across products, confirmed by a CNBC report on retailer tariff responses.

As one survey respondent summarized,

“We need to make decisions, but the ball is constantly moving.”

For McAllen-area businesses and consumers alike, the interplay of trade policy, inflation, and industry adaptation will define the coming months.

From mayor-led economic summits to university-led research workshops, the Rio Grande Valley is positioning itself as a Texas leader in AI, smart city innovation, and automation.

The 2025 MXLAN International Economic Summit in McAllen drew regional and national leaders who charted how AI is revolutionizing manufacturing, workforce development, and public services - with panels highlighting upskilling, cross-sector collaboration, and the region's readiness to lead.

As Commissioner Seby Haddad put it, “McAllen is a leader – not a follower,” echoing local commitment to shaping a tech-driven economic future. At the higher education level, UTRGV's Summer STARTER-AI Workshop brought together faculty, students, and industry experts for three days of hands-on AI tutorials, research showcases, and collaborative sessions, focusing on applications ranging from cybersecurity to autonomous systems.

The region's trajectory was further showcased at Austin's Government Innovation Showcase Texas, which offered dedicated tracks on data analytics, IT modernization, and digital transformation, reinforcing statewide collaboration on ethical AI deployment.

As Amanda Crawford, CIO of the Texas Department of Information Resources, noted:

“Any technology event that is focused on the public sector is important because our jobs are really hard. They're challenging. They're nonstop...being able to commiserate, laugh, and celebrate the challenges and the wins makes our jobs so much easier.”

McAllen's forward momentum is rooted in strong university-industry ties and a commitment to digital equity and workforce readiness.

For deeper event insights, see the AI impact highlights from the MXLAN International Economic Summit, explore the UTRGV Summer 2025 AI Workshop agenda and outcomes, and review statewide modernization strategies at the Government Innovation Showcase Texas 2025.

McAllen's emergence as a regional tech and AI powerhouse is undeniable, propelled by robust cross-border trade, strategic infrastructure investments, and an ambitious vision for the future.

Leaders highlighted these strengths at the recent MXLAN Economic Summit, where the focus was on how artificial intelligence and technology are reshaping workforce demands, and local officials reinforced the critical need for upskilling to stay ahead of rapid change.

Mayor Javier Villalobos' “McAllen Way” approach underscores a unified commitment to economic innovation and collaborative growth programs that position the city for continued leadership.

Trade statistics reflect this momentum, with a 2% increase in GDP, nearly $100 million in retail sector gains, and cross-border flows surpassing 9.8 million passengers last year, all supported by the $83 million Anzalduas International Bridge expansion designed to process up to 2,000 trucks daily and stimulate logistics and manufacturing activity driven by dynamic regional connectivity.

Industry experts highlight that nearshoring, AI adoption, and innovative logistics platforms are vital to McAllen's sustained competitiveness, even amid geopolitical uncertainty and evolving tariffs:

“There's churn in the water right now just because we don't know what the new rules of engagement are. Yet the three countries are entangled, in a good way.” - David Cox, Polaris Transportation Group

With infrastructure advancements and a culture of continuous learning, McAllen stands at the forefront of tech-driven growth - demonstrating how strategic vision and regional collaboration are shaping the Rio Grande Valley into a national model for AI-era development.

For a broader look at how enhancements like the Anzalduas International Bridge are powering cross-border trade and supply chains, see this in-depth analysis on bridge expansion and logistics.