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

Weekly commentary: North Texas at the center of an AI manufacturing and data‑center storm - NVIDIA's plan to produce American-made AI supercomputers (working with Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in North Texas) and Wistron's recent $761M commitment for two AllianceTexas plants (nearly 1.1 million square feet and more than 800 jobs) mean the Dallas–Fort Worth corridor is shifting into industrial overdrive; read NVIDIA's announcement for the manufacturing and digital‑twin details and the Fort Worth report on the local investment.

With mass production slated to ramp in the next 12–15 months, the region could see “gigawatt AI factories” and big demand for technicians, operators and prompt‑savvy knowledge workers - a reality McKinney residents can prepare for with practical training like Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp: Gain practical AI skills for any workplace to learn AI tools and prompting for business roles.

Bootcamp	Length	Cost (early bird)	Registration
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582	Register for Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (15 Weeks)

“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

NVIDIA to build and manufacture AI supercomputers in Texas - North Texas in play: NVIDIA's plan to bring supercomputer assembly and testing to Texas - partnering with Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in Dallas - puts North Texas squarely in the path of an industrial shift that could ripple across data centers, fabs and local supply chains; read NVIDIA's announcement for factory and digital‑twin details and see Governor Abbott's welcome for the Texas investment.

The company has commissioned more than a million square feet of space, started Blackwell chip production in Arizona, and expects mass production at the Texas plants to ramp in 12–15 months as it moves toward up to $500 billion of U.S. AI infrastructure over four years.

Expect “tens of gigawatt AI factories,” robotics‑driven assembly and hundreds of thousands of jobs that will change what local workforce training and power planning must prioritize.

Partner	Location	Key fact	Timeline
Foxconn	Houston	Supercomputer manufacturing plant	Mass production in 12–15 months
Wistron	Dallas	Supercomputer manufacturing plant	Mass production in 12–15 months
Overall	U.S.	Commissioned >1M sq ft; up to $500B in AI infrastructure	Next 4 years

“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

Collin County forecasted to become a major tech/AI economic engine by 2050: the Texas Association of Business' new TAB study projects Collin County could generate more than $360 billion in real GDP by 2050 - roughly on par with Missouri's 2024 economy - and capture about 10% of Texas' total output while housing roughly 7% of the state's workforce and 6% of its population, a transformation fuelled by surging AI adoption, data‑center buildouts and manufacturing expansions.

Anchors in Plano, Frisco and McKinney plus demand for electricians, machinists and AI‑literate talent make the outlook concrete; the TAB analysis (read the full TAB study) and local reporting in the Dallas Morning News trace how generative AI use and targeted workforce training are already multiplying productivity - generative AI adoption climbed sharply, signaling that modest increases in tech employment can deliver outsized economic gains.

The vivid takeaway: Collin County's 2050 economy could feel like a whole new state next door unless local planning, training and infrastructure scale to match the opportunity.

Projection	Value
Projected 2050 real GDP	> $360 billion (TAB)
Share of Texas GDP (2050)	10%
Share of Texas workforce (2050)	7%
Share of Texas population (2050)	6%
Tech worker growth through 2050	+7%
Sector economic impact increase (projected)	+361%

“Texas' dedication to innovation has positioned communities, rural and urban, across our state to be ahead of the curve on economic growth driven by the technology sector.” - Glenn Hamer, TAB President & CEO

“Technology investments and the number of technology jobs in Texas are accelerating. In the future, their impact on Texas real GDP growth will be even more significant. As artificial intelligence, automation, and data center expansions reshape the way work is done, the resulting productivity gains from technology will become a powerful driver of economic growth in Texas through 2050.” - Jason Schenker, President of Prestige Economics

Regional tech boom ties: data centers, fabs and corporate relocations - North Texas is stitching together an AI infrastructure cluster where factory floors and server halls feed one another: Plano is now home to Aligned's DFW‑04, a liquid‑cooled, GPU‑ready campus that Lambda (backed by NVIDIA) will occupy in a roughly $700M, 425,000‑square‑foot build expected online in 2026, and local reporting shows this move links to broader capacity growth across D‑FW; read the city notice on Plano's expansion and Aligned's partnership with Lambda for details.

That deal - framed by Aligned's modular air and DeltaFlow liquid cooling and Lambda's AI Cloud - demonstrates how hyperscale data centers, fab supply chains and corporate relocations combine to turn regional real estate into compute islands, changing where power, fiber and skilled technicians are needed; the Dallas Morning News coverage gives useful local context on timelines and why D‑FW matters for cloud connectivity.

Project	Location	Estimated Cost	Size	Target Online
DFW‑04 (Aligned + Lambda)	Plano, TX	$700M	~425,000 sq ft	2026

“We're proud to partner with Lambda to support the buildout of its GPU cloud infrastructure, accelerated by NVIDIA, for AI deployments, which is transforming how AI developers innovate and businesses utilizing AI models operate.” - Andrew Schaap, CEO of Aligned

Local leadership and infrastructure plans in Collin County's cities: city and county leaders are synchronizing big-ticket projects to turn McKinney into a logistics and aviation hub - McKinney National Airport has broken ground on a 46,000‑square‑foot commercial terminal (four gates, expandable to six, with a 980‑space lot) funded with a mix of city, state and bond dollars and expected to start commercial flights by late 2026, according to the International Airport Review report on McKinney National Airport terminal (International Airport Review report on McKinney National Airport terminal); nearby, CapRock Partners plans the 15‑acre, ~250,000‑square‑foot McKinney Air Business Park to capture logistics, distribution and light‑manufacturing demand, with groundbreaking slated for early 2026 as reported by the Dallas Morning News article on McKinney Air Business Park development (Dallas Morning News article on McKinney Air Business Park development).

The alignment of terminal capacity, the Spur 399 corridor improvements and new industrial space creates a concrete path for high‑wage airport jobs and modern supply‑chain facilities - one vivid detail: the terminal is sized to serve ~200,000 passengers a year initially, a quick way to visualize how travel, freight and local hiring could scale together.

Project	Key facts	Timeline
McKinney National Airport terminal	46,000 sq ft; 4 gates (expandable to 6); $79M; 980 parking spaces; capacity ~200,000 passengers/year	Construction begun Jul 2025; service expected late 2026
McKinney Air Business Park	15.3 acres; ~250,000 sq ft across two buildings; Class A shallow‑bay industrial	Groundbreaking early 2026

“This new terminal is not just an investment in McKinney, it's an investment in the future of North Texas. This project fulfils a long-standing vision of the City Council to create a future-ready airport that strengthens mobility, supports economic development, and makes travel more accessible.” - Mayor Bill Cox

NVIDIA earnings, market dynamics and investor concerns: NVIDIA's Q2 showed the sheer scale of the AI build‑out - revenue hit $46.7 billion (up 56% YoY) with Data Center bringing in $41.1 billion and Blackwell sales rising 17% sequentially - yet the numbers come with sharp caveats that matter to McKinney-area planners and investors alike.

The company guided to $54 billion for Q3, signaling continued hyperscaler spend, but market-watchers flagged concentration and geopolitical risks: two unnamed customers accounted for roughly 39% of Q2 revenue and H20 chip shipments to China remain tightly constrained, issues explored in NVIDIA's own quarter filing and reported coverage like CNBC's analysis of customer concentration and export uncertainty.

For local tech employers and training programs, the takeaway is practical - demand is enormous but fragile, hinging on a few big buyers and shifting trade rules, so workforce and infrastructure bets should balance upside with contingency planning; read the NVIDIA Q2 FY2026 press release and the CNBC analysis of NVIDIA customer concentration and export uncertainty for the details.

Metric	Q2 FY2026
Total revenue	$46.7 billion
Data Center revenue	$41.1 billion
Net income	$26.42 billion
Q3 revenue guidance	$54.0 billion ±2%

“Blackwell is the AI platform the world has been waiting for. The AI race is on, and Blackwell is the platform at its center.” - Jensen Huang

Semiconductor manufacturing builds supporting North Texas' supply chain: North Texas is already at the center of a domestic chip renaissance as Texas Instruments' plan to invest more than $60 billion - including roughly $40 billion for a four‑fab mega‑site in Sherman (SM1 and SM2 already underway, with SM3/SM4 planned) - promises hundreds of millions of U.S.‑made analog and embedded chips that feed everything from phones to data centers; read Texas Instruments' full project announcement and timeline for Sherman.

That on‑ramp is paired with wafer capacity moving stateside - GlobalWafers' flagship 300mm plant in Sherman and its announced expansion are key links in the supply chain - reinforcing local suppliers, packaging, and PCB work near the fabs.

The scale is tangible: TI expects these mega‑sites to support more than 60,000 U.S. jobs, run on renewable energy at Sherman, and manage heavy water use (about 1,700 gallons per minute with planned recycling), all of which means North Texas must synchronize power, water and workforce pipelines to turn fabs into a resilient regional industry cluster; learn more about GlobalWafers' Sherman wafer plant and expansion.

Metric	Value
TI total U.S. investment	> $60 billion
Sherman allocation	~$40 billion (4 fabs: SM1–SM4)
Jobs supported (U.S.)	> 60,000
GlobalWafers Sherman investment	$3.5B (expanding to $7.5B)
Sherman water use (full fab)	~1,700 gallons/min (50%+ recycling)

“TI is building dependable, low-cost 300mm capacity at scale to deliver the analog and embedded processing chips that are vital for nearly every type of electronic system.” - Haviv Ilan, TI President and CEO

Major data‑center investments and connectivity - Lambda in Plano and beyond: Lambda Inc., the NVIDIA‑backed AI cloud provider, is taking capacity at Aligned Data Centers' DFW‑04 in east Plano - a roughly 425,000‑square‑foot, nearly $700 million build on N. Star Road that's under construction and expected online in 2026 - a move detailed in the Dallas Business Journal and industry coverage; this facility combines Aligned's modular air and DeltaFlow liquid cooling (capable of very high rack densities) with an on‑site substation and plans for more than 5,000 megawatts of future capacity, making it a strategic hub for GPU‑heavy AI workloads.

The practical upside is clear: proximity to Microsoft and AWS regions and Lambda's cloud services speed data movement and lower latency for AI labs, while liquid cooling and closed‑loop designs shrink water use and push local power and fiber planning into high gear - picture a 425,000‑square‑foot compute slab humming with racks cooled to 300kW per rack, reshaping where talent and infrastructure must land in North Texas.

Read the Dallas Business Journal coverage and the DataCenterDynamics analysis for more: Dallas Business Journal coverage of Lambda in Plano and DataCenterDynamics analysis of Lambda and Aligned Data Centers.

Project	Key facts
DFW‑04 (Aligned + Lambda)	~425,000 sq ft; ~$700M investment; address on N. Star Road (Plano); expected online 2026; Aligned DeltaFlow liquid/air cooling; >5,000 MW future capacity

“Our customers do want connectivity to other clouds, so the Microsoft or AWS regions are close by which allows them to have more connectivity and move data in faster and cheaper.” - Robert Brooks IV, VP of Revenue, Lambda

Power solutions for AI infrastructure: SMRs and large energy projects - as North Texas braces for GPU‑heavy data centers and fab power demands, small modular reactors (SMRs) have moved from theory to partnership: X‑energy, Amazon, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Doosan Enerbility are teaming to accelerate deployment of Xe‑100 reactors (think pebble‑bed cores with fuel “pebbles the size of a billiard ball”) to deliver reliable, 24/7 carbon‑free power for AI loads, with a goal of more than 5 GW of new nuclear capacity in the U.S. by 2039 and up to $50 billion in public–private investment; see the X‑energy partnership announcement and the DataCenterDynamics analysis for the plan and technical details.

The appeal is clear - factory‑built modules that can scale alongside hyperscale campuses remove intermittency risk, free up transmission capacity, and offer high‑density baseload power that data centers need to train massive models without grid stress.

Metric	Value
Planned U.S. SMR capacity (by 2039)	> 5 GW
Investment target	Up to $50 billion
Xe‑100 output per unit	80 MWe (electric) / 200 MWt (thermal)
Initial deployment sites	Dow Seadrift (TX), Energy Northwest (WA)

“This partnership brings together proven nuclear leadership and experience from Korean industry and X‑energy's advanced reactor and fuel technology to meet a historic energy challenge.” - J. Clay Sell, X‑energy

Policy, geopolitics and regulatory shifts shaping local tech opportunities: Meta's move into state‑level politics - launching the “Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California” super PAC to back candidates who favor lighter AI rules - signals that the next battleground for tech policy is no longer only Washington but Sacramento, with companies ready to spend “tens of millions” (and reports saying commitments could reach up to $200 million) ahead of the 2026 midterms; read the Reuters coverage for the announcement, the Yahoo coverage for reporting context, and the Mitrade briefing for the PAC's leadership and strategy.

The campaign, led by Brian Rice and Greg Maurer, aims to influence fights over bills like SB 53 and counters organized safety efforts (groups such as Encode and researcher‑backed coalitions are pushing the opposite direction), meaning California's outcome could set regulatory precedents that reshape where firms build, hire and deploy AI - making these political contests a practical economic signal, not just a legal one, for regional planners and employers weighing long‑term investments.

Item	Detail
PAC name	Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California
Purpose	Support candidates favoring looser AI regulation
Leaders	Brian Rice; Greg Maurer
Potential spend	Tens of millions - reports suggest up to $200M
Target	2026 California midterms and governor's race; influence on bills like SB 53

“Sacramento's regulatory environment could stifle innovation, block AI progress, and put California's technology leadership at risk.” - Brian Rice, Meta Vice President of Public Policy

Workforce and education trends: closing the skills gap for McKinney's AI economy - North Texas will need more than bootcamps to meet rising employer demand as AI shifts from novelty to daily work: the Stanford AI Index shows AI business usage jumped to 78% in 2024, driving record private investment and creating new hiring patterns, and surveys show educators and online programs are rushing to equip teachers and students with practical AI skills; local training that teaches prompt workflows, model basics and ethics can translate directly into jobs as startups and firms scale teams.

Schools and employers should mirror national efforts - such as the White House‑backed push for teacher training and the Cengage mid‑summer update on AI in classrooms that documents nearly six hours a week saved by frequent AI users - while colleges adopt formal AI policies and workshops (UPCEA finds most online programs now use AI and about 77% offer structured workshops).

Early‑stage firms also report growth: a Mercury survey found 68% of AI adopters are expanding their teams, underscoring an urgent “train‑to‑hire” opportunity for McKinney: stack short, hands‑on credentials next to internships and vendor‑backed labs so residents can move from coursework to paid roles in months, not years; see the Stanford AI Index for the big picture, the Cengage education update for classroom trends, and Mercury's hiring analysis for startup demand.

Metric	Value / Source
AI business usage (2024)	78% of organizations - Stanford AI Index
U.S. private AI investment (2024)	$109.1 billion - Stanford AI Index
Teachers' weekly time savings using AI	~6 hours/week - Cengage mid‑summer update
Online programs offering AI workshops	~77% - UPCEA (BestColleges report)
Startups expanding teams due to AI	68% - Mercury survey

“There always has to be a strong human element. The mileage may vary, [but] no human in the loop is wrong.” - Cesar Zamudio

Conclusion: What McKinney should do next - planning, workforce, and partnership priorities: McKinney's playbook needs three parallel moves - plan power and land with the same urgency as permitting, train people now for jobs that arrive fast, and strike pragmatic public‑private partnerships to share risk - because global studies warn the scale is enormous (McKinsey's mid‑range estimate points to roughly $6.7T of data‑center investment through 2030) and grid limits could become the choke point for local growth; see the McKinsey coverage for the investment scale and Fortune's reporting on how U.S. grid weakness risks falling behind China.

Start with staged infrastructure commitments (avoid one‑off bets that leave stranded assets), pair short, hands‑on credentials and bootcamps that teach prompting and applied AI to move residents into paid roles quickly, and lock in utility and developer agreements that include phased power delivery and decarbonization clauses.

For residents and employers alike, practical training such as the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus and course details (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus and course details) can be a fast, affordable bridge to the jobs these projects will create; local leaders should also use McKinsey's scenarios to stress‑test permitting timelines and negotiate shared investment structures with hyperscalers and utilities to keep growth sustainable.

“AI's insatiable power demand is outpacing the grid's decade-long development cycles, creating a critical bottleneck.” - Goldman Sachs