< Previous126 TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE processing industry veterans — is seizing on the potential. Aided by support from both the state and Amarillo Economic Development Corp (AEDC), the nascent enterprise is building a $670 million processing facility in the Texas Panhandle. Upon expected completion in 2026, it is to employ nearly 1,600 workers and process at least 3,000 cattle a day. According to an economic impact report by the Perryman Group, the plant is to generate $1.27 billion in gross product each year and 12,863 jobs in the Amarillo/Panhandle area. For reasons such as those, AEDC and the state agreed to make significant investments in the project. AEDC granted the company more than 600 acres for the facility and incentives totaling $11.1 million. The Texas Enterprise Fund offered a grant of $12.2 million. “The importance of Texas Enterprise Fund along with Amarillo EDC backing for this project cannot be overstated” said Casey Cameron, CEO of Producer Owned Beef. Further bolstering the Panhandle’s status as the heart of cattle raising country, Tyson Foods recently expanded its Amarillo beef processing plant to the tune of $200 million. The company says the investment will allow it to expand and upgrade operations and build a new well-being area for team members. Kevin Carter, AEDC’s executive director, said the expansion “solidifies Tyson’s position as a top economic driver in our community for years to come.” 1CATTLE $15.5 BILLION 2POULTRY & EGGS$5 BILLION 3DAIRY$3.5 BILLION 4CORN$1.6 BILLION 5COTTON$1.4 BILLION 6GREENHOUSE$1.2 BILLION 7FRUITS, VEGETABLES, TREE NUTS$846 MILLION 8WHEAT$443 MILLION 9SORGHUM$435 MILLION 10RICE$269 MILLION Top 10 Texas Commodities (2022 market value) Source: texasagriculture.gov128 TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE Bringing Ag Indoors An expanding crop of indoor farms across Texas offers a vivid illustration of how agriculture is advancing beyond the time-honored practice of planting, praying for favorable weather and harvesting out in the scorching heat. Florida-based PLANT-AS, a hydroponic produce provider that’s making massive investments in West Texas, describes its indoor grow operations as “modern data centers.” They’re supported by artificial intelligence. Data collected and processed via IBM’s blockchain- supported system, says a release, “is the foundation of a digital infrastructure model that will transform the global food supply chain.” PLANT-AS is investing $1.1 billion to develop over 1,100 acres of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) in Amarillo and Lubbock. At full buildout, expected to unfold over a decade, the two indoor farms are to employ about 1,600 workers with a combined payroll of $80 million. The company says it uses 70% to 90% less water than traditional agriculture methods. “The end-to-end impact PLANT-AS will have on existing food systems This is the new face of agriculture. Photo: Getty Images/piranka Photo: Getty Imagesbegins with the agricultural process and extends all the way through the consumer experience,” said Plant-AS Director of Global Brand Representation Sara Gaul. “We are thrilled to be a part of the economic growth in West Texas. Together, we are building infrastructure for the future.” New York-based Bright Farms is set to become the second-largest employer in the Texas town of Lorena, just south of Waco on Interstate 35. The indoor lettuce grower expects to create 255 jobs with a Phase-One investment of $120 million. Ag-tech startup Eden Green Technology recently broke ground on a $40 million expansion of the indoor lettuce farm it launched south of Fort Worth in 2022. The expansion is projected to triple production to more than 5 million pounds of produce annually as the Texas-based company gears up for nationwide growth over the next five years. And Local Bounti, based in Montana, is commencing operations at a $25 million indoor farm for growing leafy greens east of Dallas. The company expects to generate about 200 direct and indirect jobs throughout Titus County. Fields of Plenty In all, Texas leads the nation with nearly 250,000 farms and ranches covering more than 125 million acres. According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, 86% of the state is in some form of agricultural production. More than 95% of Texas farms and ranches are family-owned and operated, and one in seven working Texans is employed in something agriculture related. The economic impact of the Texas food and fiber sector ranges around $100 billion. With its diverse climates and land, Texas supplies a wide variety of crops to markets in the United States and beyond. It’s the country’s top producer of watermelons and ranks second for carrots and pumpkins. The state is a major grower of citrus products, peppers, cabbages, cucumbers, mushrooms, pecans, peanuts and spinach. And given all those cows, it should come as no surprise that Texas generally ranks among the top three states for milk and dairy production. In March, Walmart announced plans for a $350 million milk processing facility in the town of Robinson south of Waco. Slated to open in 2026, it is to bring 400 new jobs to McLellan County. Products from the facility, Walmart says, will serve more than 750 Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs throughout the South, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and parts of Arkansas and Mississippi. “We’re excited,” said Bruce Heckman, vice president of Manufacturing at Walmart, “to be able to provide Texas and its surrounding states with high-quality milk sourced primarily from Texas dairy farmers.” TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 129A lready a technology industry powerhouse, Texas is emerging as a leading center for artificial intelligence (AI), with hundreds of companies active in this booming tech sector. Largely clustered in the Austin, Dallas and Houston metros, they also can be found in League City, between Galveston and Houston (Businessware Technologies), San Antonio (FunnelAI) and other Lone Star State communities. Las Vegas-based GoodFirms, a B2B review and rating platform, and Washington, D.C.-based Clutch, a global marketplace of B2B service providers, each provide rankings of the Top AI Companies in Texas, with the latter ranking 199 of them. Startups or established, small or large, these AI players are in good company. Texas is home to close to 18,000 tech companies that employ nearly 204,000 workers, according to the Texas Economic Development Corporation. CompTIA’s State of the Tech Workforce 2024 reports Texas’ net tech employment at 936,296, or 6.4% of the state’s overall workforce. That figure is a combination of tech occupation jobs (537,935) and tech industry jobs (647,317). by MARK AREND TECHNOLOGY AI Companies Tech-Sector Employment Augment 130 TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE Graphic: Getty Images132 TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE The tech occupations employing the most Texans in 2023, according to the CompTIA report, were Software, Programmers, Web and QA (176,000); IT Support Specialist and Repair Technicians (84,000); and Cybersecurity and Systems Engineers (69,000). How does Texas stack up nationally in tech employment? The State of the Tech Workforce analysis ranks it first in tech employment job gains, second in net tech employment and third in projected percent change in tech occupation growth from 2024 to 2034, at 28%. It’s second among the top states for employer job postings for tech openings and third in the number of new tech business establishments in 2023. Dallas ranks first in the top metros nationally by net tech employment job gains; Austin is third and Houston is fifth. Austin ranks fourth in metros by tech economic impact as a percent of the local economy, and Dallas is sixth by net tech employment. Austin’s AI Clout Is on the Ascent The state’s burgeoning AI industry won’t need to look far for talent. EduRank.org, an independent metric-based ranking of more than 14,000 universities from around the world, lists 63 colleges and universities on its February 2024 Best Colleges for Artificial Intelligence in Texas. The top five are the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University — College Station, Rice University, the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Dallas. Fifty- eight other schools across Texas, from El Paso (University of Texas) to Lubbock (Texas Tech University) to Corpus Christi (Texas A&M) also have growing AI degree programs. In August 2020, the University of Texas at Austin was picked as the site for the National Science Foundation’s AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning, the technology behind AI applications. “This is another important step in our university’s ascension as a world leader in machine learning and tech innovation as a whole, and I am grateful to the National Science Foundation for their profound support,” said UT Austin interim President Jay Hartzell in a statement at the time. “Many of the world’s greatest problems and challenges can be solved with the assistance of artificial intelligence, and it’s only fitting, given UT’s history of accomplishment in this area along with the booming tech sector in Austin, that this new NSF institute be housed right here on the Forty Acres.” The Institute is housed in the university’s Machine Learning Laboratory in the Gates- Dell Complex. In January 2024, UT Austin launched the Center for Generative AI, which is also housed in the Machine Learning Laboratory. A UT News report says the Center is “powered by a new GPU computing cluster, among the largest in academia. The cluster will comprise 600 NVIDIA H100s GPUs — short for graphics processing units, specialized devices to enable rapid mathematical computations, making them ideal for training AI models. The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) will host and support the cluster, called Vista,” an AI- focused supercomputer. Austin is home to the flagship campus of the University of Texas. In January 2024, UT Austin launched the Center for Generative AI, which is also housed in the Machine Learning Laboratory. Photo: Getty Images134 TEXAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE T rade tensions between the U.S. and China and the rising costs of Chinese labor were already established headwinds to the global supply chain status-quo at the onset of the pandemic in 2020. The ensuing two years of turbulence revealed the fragility of the global supply chain. The shifting landscape has led to a resurgence of government-led industrial policy and an effort to diversify and strengthen supply chains. Many firms are acting to bring production closer to consumption through reshoring, nearshoring, foreign direct investment and domestic expansion, according to Newmark’s 2024 Manufacturing Momentum Thought Leadership Series. Indicators all signal that industrial demand will swing to the upside in the short term. Warehouses are still at maximum capacity as inventories have ballooned. Imports remain historically high and supply chain woes have not fully eased. Investment in new manufacturing facilities is on the rise fueled by the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. These three federal funding programs are predicted to furnish anywhere from 15% to 50% of costs for some manufacturing projects. by SUSAN ARLEDGE, SIOR, NEWMARK DALLAS LOGISTICS Manufacturing and Logistics Growth in Manufacturing and Logistics Growth in T e x a s Route 90 on the Pecos River Bridge Photo : Getty Images/ halbergmanNext >