Texas Artificial Intelligence Degrees

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Texas is a superb place to be for your artificial intelligence education. In our Texas directory, you’ll discover 45+ master’s degrees & graduate certificates in artificial intelligence, including programs from prestigious Carnegie R1 institutions such as UT Austin and Texas A&M College Station. You can compare the merits of an on-campus, hybrid, or online master’s degree in AI. Or you can start with a graduate certificate in foundational AI or ML. Whatever your goals, Texas has a qualification to suit!

Texas AI Highlights

Public research universities in our Texas directory have unique AI strengths. UT Austin is an all-rounder, but take a look at Texas A&M for defense, TAMU-CC for coastal AI, and UH for energy. Our Schools section has more details on each university, as well as private research universities like Rice.
Austin is considered to be the “cool kid” for AI work in Texas, but DFW has Fortune 1000 companies and a high concentration of semiconductor manufacturing & telecom companies. And Houston is a bustling hub of energy AI & healthcare AI—the Texas Medical Center (TMC) is the world’s largest medical complex. See our Landscape for insider job tips.
In particular, watch out for cyber AI opportunities in San Antonio. This southern city has the Texas Cyber Command, the Sixteenth Air Force, and UTSA’s College of AI, Cyber and Computing (CAICC). To help you begin making career connections, we’ve provided links to city-specific events in our Resources section.

Artificial Intelligence Schools in Texas

Thanks to a flood of investment and state government support, Texas universities have quickly turned the region into a global artificial intelligence hub. In other states, one or two schools may dominate AI higher education. In Texas, almost every university listed in our directory of TX Master’s in AI programs has its hand in artificial intelligence research & initiatives. We’ve highlighted a few of the most well-known universities, but don’t discount the others! There are plenty of AI opportunities across the state.

UT Austin: The University of Texas at Austin is the largest technical powerhouse of AI in the Lone Star State—have a look at Texas AI for an overview. At UT Austin, you’ll find a Department of Computer Science with 15+ labs, institutes, and research groups in AI and robotics, including the renowned Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence; the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and the NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility (NSF LCCF); and the highly active Machine Learning Laboratory (MLL). Within MLL you’ll find the National AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning (IFML) and the Center for Generative AI, which is particularly interested in biosciences, health care, computer vision, and NLP. UT Austin is also working closely with the Texas CHIPS Office on the Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE), a statewide, public-private semiconductor R&D/manufacturing center. In 2024, DARPA selected TIE to develop the next generation of high-performance semiconductor microsystems for the Department of Defense.
Texas A&M System: The Texas A&M Institute of Data Science (TAMIDS), located on the College Station campus, is a key hub of AI-related research & labs for Texas A&M. In particular, it’s spearheading the Research in Artificial Intelligence for Science and Engineering (RAISE) initiative, which is focused on tying together AI research with engineering & scientific applications, including a fair amount of work in agtech. See the full list of funded AI projects at TAMIDS for details. Another Texas A&M strength? Defense. Over on the RELLIS campus in Bryan you’ll find the Bush Combat Development Complex (BCDC) and a number of test & innovation facilities in AI areas such as autonomy, networks, hypersonics, and the like. BCDC and DARPA are even working together to deploy autonomous helicopters for wildfire response. Best of all, Texas A&M is beefing up its computing muscles. In 2025, the Texas A&M System announced that it was investing $45 million into an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, one of the highest-performance supercomputers at any North American university.
UTSA: The University of Texas at San Antonio is one of our top picks for cyber AI. The city of San Antonio plays host to Texas Cyber Command, the nation’s largest state-run cybersecurity agency, and the Sixteenth Air Force, which is responsible for information warfare. In 2024, UTSA opened a new College of AI, Cyber and Computing (CAICC), which builds on the expertise of its former School of Data Science. UTSA is also home to the National Security Collaboration Center (NSCC), a public-private partnership between federal, industry, and academic partners. Tellingly, the university was the first in Texas to offer a bachelor’s degree in Applied Cyber Analytics. (Intriguingly, UTSA has also developed the country’s first known MD/MSAI, in conjunction with UT Health San Antonio.)
Rice: Anyone interested in Houston jobs should put Rice University on their Texas shortlist. The Ken Kennedy Institute is one of the key nodes of artificial intelligence at the university, with a particular interest in responsible AI. Each year, it runs an AI in Health Conference and a separate Energy HPC & AI Conference. In 2024, Rice also established the Digital Health Institute (DHI), a joint initiative with Houston Methodist. DHI is designed to bring together researchers & clinicians who are working at the intersection of medicine & technology. In addition to AI & ML, it’s delving into areas such as digital diagnostics, robotics, computational biology, and patient sensors. Expect more projects with Texas Medical Center partners as time goes on.

And this is just the start. We also want to mention Southern Methodist University’s Center for Digital and Human-Augmented Manufacturing in the Lyle School of Engineering and its O’Donnell Data Science and Research Computing Institute; UT Dallas’s Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (CAIML); Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s Coastal Dynamics Lab and its work on coastal AI with the Conrad Blucher Institute AI2ES program; and the University of Houston’s Energy Transition Institute (ETI), located in a city famous for its energy sector.

Online Master’s in Artificial Intelligence Programs in Texas

Unable to visit a Texas campus on a regular basis? There’s no need to worry. Our Texas directory features 20+ online master’s degrees and graduate certificates in AI, including a number from R1 schools. Look for the “Offered Online” tag under the degree title. Before you apply, check whether the program is 100% asynchronous (learn on your own time) or includes synchronous “real-time” elements such as online class discussions or Zoom sessions.

Best in Show: UT Austin’s Online Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) is the #1 online AI graduate program in Texas. It’s affordable, well-regarded, and full of practical case studies & relevant electives (e.g. AI in Healthcare and Optimization). You’ll graduate with a prestigious name on your résumé and you can tap into the university’s resources while you’re enrolled.
Technical: However, there are a number of top-notch technical alternatives to UT Austin’s program. These include Texas A&M College Station’s Online Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MS AI); Rice’s Online Master of Computer Science (OMCS) – Machine Learning; and SMU’s Online Master of Science – Artificial Intelligence. All of these degrees come from Departments of Computer Science.
Business: If you’re focused on AI in business, you should prioritize UT Dallas’s cohort-based Online Master of Science in Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (BUAN). This program lives within the Information Systems (IS) Academic Area in the Naveen Jindal School of Management. Jindal’s Center for Information Technology and Management (CTIM) can even help to arrange corporate internships and liaisons with a number of DFW & tech companies.
AI & the Arts: Texas universities have even gone to the trouble to create arts-focused AI programs such as UTEP’s Online Master of Arts in Education – Artificial Intelligence in Education for a wide range of educators or the SMU Meadows School of the Arts’s Online Master of Arts in Creative Technology for creative coders & AI artists.

Remember, too, that your employer may be happy to help fund a shorter & cheaper online graduate certificate in AI. UT Austin, Texas A&M, and UNT all offer technically-focused online AI certificates for working professionals. In our Texas directory, you’ll also discover SMU’s online certificate for AI leaders, UT Dallas’s online certificate in applied ML, and more.

The Artificial Intelligence Landscape in Texas

Texas is Boomtown, USA for artificial intelligence developments. In a CompTIA report on the State of the Tech Workforce 2025, Texas was right behind California in net tech employment and the state that was projected to see the biggest net tech employment gains in 2025 (+40,051 jobs). If it can find a way to deal with wild weather and water shortages, it’s in a prime place to capitalize on its AI & grid investments.

Statewide: In a 2025 Brookings Metro report on Mapping the AI Economy, all of the key cities in Texas—Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio—were identified as Star Hubs. These are metropolitan areas with well-balanced strengths in AI talent, research, and enterprise uptake. According to this report, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio experienced more than a 250% gain in AI job postings from 2018 to 2025. If you peer closely at Abilene, you’ll spot the flagship site of Stargate, a massive data center launched by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. In 2025, Meta also announced plans to build a $1.5 billion data center in El Paso.
Austin: Austin can be considered a “full-stack” AI hub. It’s the home of UT Austin, a healthy venture/startup ecosystem, and a bunch of impressive tech players. Major AI employers in the area include AMD, Arm, Amazon, Oracle, IBM, and consulting firms like Deloitte. Tesla even has a Gigafactory just outside of the city. It’s the place to be if you have unique AI ideas! In the CompTIA report, Austin was identified as the #4 Top Metro by Tech Economic Impact as a Percent of Local Economy (22%), a rank only exceeded by San Jose, Seattle, and San Francisco. And in Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2025, Austin placed #30 in the final Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking, ahead of Dallas at #38.
Dallas-Fort Worth: When it comes to AI, the DFW area is a bit more established & traditional than Austin. The Silicon Prairie is known for having a high concentration of semiconductor manufacturing & telecom companies, high net tech employment (it’s right behind NYC in the CompTIA report), and a lot of grunt. DFW has the most data centers in the state—more than double that of Houston—with most new capacity pre-leased to AI/hyperscaler tenants. Having said that, AI employers tend to belong to the old guard. Think Toyota, AT&T, Texas Instruments, JPMorgan Chase, American Airlines, Lockheed Martin, PepsiCo/Frito-Lay, Southwest, and Goldman Sachs. When you check job boards in Dallas, you’re likely to see AI engineering opportunities, as well as applied AI roles in Fortune 1000 companies.
Houston: Although it typically lags behind Austin and DFW in AI job postings, Houston is a prime site for AI roles in medical fields, oil & gas, and energy. Known as the “Medical Mini-City”, the Texas Medical Center (TMC) is the world’s largest medical complex and full of TMC member institutions involved in AI research. Think MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Institute for Data Science in Oncology (IDSO), Baylor College of Medicine’s Artificial Intelligence in Health Lab (AIH Lab), and Houston Methodist & Rice’s Digital Health Institute (DHI). AI employers in Houston’s oil & gas and energy sectors include the usual cast of characters—Chevron, ExxonMobil, Vitol, SLB, Baker Hughes, etc. But keep an eye on the innovators. Houston also has the Ion District and the organizations such as Greentown Labs, the world’s largest climatetech & energy incubator.

Texas Artificial Intelligence Resources

In a state that’s jam-packed with highly qualified artificial intelligence graduates, strategic networking is half the battle. That’s why we’ve assembled this list of Texas AI events & conferences, AI meetups, and cutting-edge university research institutes. Even if you can’t attend an AI tech week or summit in Texas, you can reach out to many organizations remotely.