23 Houston companies rank among America’s most future-ready businesses

future focused

The Wall Street Journal has released its inaugural list of the best S&P 500 companies for the future. Photo courtesy HPE

By one measure, Spring-based tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprises reigns as the most future-ready Houston-area company on the S&P 500 stock index.

HPE sits at No. 72 in a first-time ranking of the best S&P 500 companies for the future. Including HPE, 23 Houston-area companies appear on the list.

Published by The Wall Street Journal, the ranking was created by Bendable Labs for the WSJ Leadership Institute. It evaluates how S&P 500 companies stack up in six areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility. To be ranked, a company had to be part of the S&P 500 as of Dec. 31.

Among the six categories, HPE ranked highest for innovation (No. 30) among local companies. The WSJ didn’t say why HPE scored so well for innovation. However, the company stands out in this category thanks to:

  • Creation of the El Capitan and Frontier supercomputing systems
  • Research into photonic computing and quantum networking
  • Last year’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, giving HPE an edge in AI-native networking
  • Establishment of the everything-as-a-service GreenLake hybrid cloud platform for data centers, colocation facilities and edge computing environments

In an interview with the Six Five podcast at HPE Discover 2025 in Las Vegas, CEO Antonio Neri said the company’s strategy is “basically founded on innovation, and that innovation drives shareholder value over the long term.”

While HPE fared well in the innovation category, it ranked toward the bottom for financial fitness. What’s behind the No. 430 ranking in the financial category? HPE’s low score likely reflects a debt-heavy acquisition strategy coupled with a historically low-margin hardware business.

Here’s the full list of the 23 Houston-area companies included in the ranking of the best companies for the future:

  • No. 72 Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • No. 105 SLB
  • No. 120 Baker Hughes
  • No. 125 ConocoPhillips
  • No. 158 NRG Energy
  • No. 176 Targa Resources
  • No. 185 Chevron
  • No. 195 Halliburton
  • No. 223 Coterra Energy
  • No. 229 Waste Management
  • No. 235 Exxon Mobil
  • No. 250 Kinder Morgan
  • No. 257 Quanta Services
  • No. 276 CenterPoint Energy
  • No. 285 Sysco
  • No. 313 Occidental Petroleum
  • No. 318 Camden Property Trust
  • No. 333 EOG Resources
  • No. 365 LyondellBasell Industries
  • No. 373 Comfort Systems USA
  • No. 401 Crown Castle
  • No. 408 Phillips 66
  • No. 500 APA
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The University of Houston has received a grant from the Baker Hughes Foundation. Photo courtesy of University of Houston

University of Houston's new hub scores $100,000 grant from energy co.

seeing green

A Houston school is cashing in a major gift from a local energy company in order to support the industry's future workforce, research, and more.

The University of Houston Energy Transition Institute received a $100,000 grant from the Baker Hughes Foundation last week, which will work towards the ETI’s goals to support workforce development programs, and environmental justice research.

The program addresses the impact of energy transition solutions in geographical areas most-affected by environmental impacts.

“We are proud to support the University of Houston in its environmental justice research and workforce development programs; at Baker Hughes, we strive to take energy forward, and are committed to a fair and just energy transition,” says Chief Sustainability Officer Allyson Book in a news release. “Novel educational approaches centered around social, climate and environmental justice are crucial to creating a sustainable future for generations to come.”

The grant aims to help ETI in analyzing environmental footprints of energy use processes, energy use processes, impact on health, and emissions, as well as support the university’s Energy Scholars Program, which focuses on research programs on carbon management, hydrogen, and circular plastics for undergraduate students.The donation also supports Baker Hughes’ work with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that work to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education for all.”

“We look forward to working with the Baker Hughes Foundation to address grand challenges in energy and chemicals and create a sustainable and equitable future for all,” says Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president of energy and innovation at UH.

ETI launched a year ago through a $10 million grant from Shell USA Inc. and Shell Global Solutions (US) Inc., and is led by Joe Powell, who opted to take the helm of the program over retiring, telling EnergyCapital that it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

UH has announced a central campus innovation hub that will house UH's programs for STEM, social sciences, business and arts. Slated to open in 2025, the 70,000 square foot hub will house a makerspace, the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, the Energy Transition Institute, innovation programs, and Presidential Frontier Faculty labs and offices.

“The University of Houston aims to transform lives and communities through education, research, innovation and service in a real-world setting," Krishnamoorti says in a news release. “I am confident that working together we will make a greater impact.”

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

A new ranking looks at the Houston companies with the most patents granted in 2022. Photo via Getty Images

These are the Houston companies with the most patents granted last year

by the numbers

Two major players in Houston’s energy industry are also major players in the patent arena.

A new ranking from the analytics arm of patent law firm Harrity & Harrity puts Saudi Aramco, whose North American headquarters is in Houston, and Halliburton, whose global headquarters is in Houston, puts them in a tie for the number of U.S. patents with 963 patents received in 2022. Saudi Aramco and Halliburton now share the title of Houston’s patent king.

Saudi Aramco saw a 12 percent rise in patents granted in 2022 compared with 2021, according to Harrity & Harrity’s Patent 300 report, while Halliburton experienced a 5 percent jump. Each company tied for 44th place among the top 300 U.S. patient recipients in 2022.

According to the report, Samsung Electronics (8,513 patents) knocked IBM off its longtime pedestal as the No. 1 recipient of U.S. patents. IBM (4,743 patents) now holds the No. 2 position.

Many of Aramco’s U.S. patents come from its R&D centers in Houston, Boston, and Detroit. The Houston R&D hub opened in 2014 and underwent an expansion three years later.

Aramco, a Saudi Arabia-based supplier of oil and natural gas, also generates patents through academic partnerships, such as the one it established last year with Rice University’s Carbon Hub. Aramco has committed $10 million over five years to the carbon initiative.

“While patents are a leading indicator of innovation, the ultimate goal is to create value through the development of solutions that help to address a particular need,” Aramco says. “Such results are often only possible with significant upfront investments, and patents make it possible to recoup these costs and potentially generate additional revenue through commercialization.”

Last year, Aramco boasted that it ranked first in the oil and gas industry for U.S. patents (864) granted in 2021. Until 2011, Aramco had received only 100 U.S. patents over a 78-year span.

“Many of the patents are for innovations Aramco uses itself for competitive advantage, although they can also be licensed to others, creating extra value for the company,” Jamil Bagawi, then the company’s chief engineer, wrote in 2021.

Halliburton also has ramped up its patenting efforts in recent years.

According to Houston law firm Yetter Coleman, those efforts kicked into high gear after Halliburton lost a fracking patent lawsuit to Tomball-based BJ Services, which is now out of business. In 2003, a Houston jury awarded $98 million in damages to BJ in the case, and Halliburton had to stop selling the system that allegedly infringed on BJ’s patent.

In the five years before the verdict, Halliburton averaged 142 patent awards a year, according to Yetter Coleman. The law firm reported in 2013 that Halliburton subsequently averaged 234 patents a year.

Today, of course, Halliburton has far exceeded those numbers. And it vigorously defends its growing patent portfolio. In September 2022, for instance, three subsidiaries of the oilfield services giant filed two lawsuits against Houston-based rival U.S. Well Services alleging infringement of 14 Halliburton patents.

IAM, a website that reports about the intellectual property industry, noted that when Halliburton sued U.S. Well Services, “IP professionals in the oil and gas industry may well have reached for the popcorn. Battles of this magnitude rarely break out in their slice of the patent world.”

Halliburton and Aramco may be the goliaths in Houston’s patent world, but they’re not the only local organizations to appear on the Patent 300 list for 2022. Other Houston-area companies that made the cut are:

  • Spring-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise, No. 84. The tech company received 511 U.S. patents in 2022, down 4 percent from the previous year.
  • Houston-based SLB (Schlumberger), No. 117. The oilfield services company received 372 U.S. patents in 2022, down 14 percent from the previous year.
  • Houston-based Baker Hughes, No. 123. The oilfield services company received 350 U.S. patents in 2022, down 11 percent from the previous year.
  • ExxonMobil, No. 156. The oil and gas company received 281 U.S. patents in 2022, down 8 percent from the previous year. It is in the process of moving its headquarters from Irving to Spring.
  • United Imaging Healthcare, No. 253. The Chinese healthcare equipment company, whose North American headquarters is in Houston, received 175 U.S. patents in 2022, up 31 percent from the previous year.
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Houston space companies win NASA funding to build Mars exploration robots

mission to mars

Two Houston-area spacetech companies have landed a portion of a $17 million award from NASA to develop robots for exploring the surface of Mars, the agency announced this month.

Houston-based Inuitive Machines and Webster, Texas-based MEI Technologies, which does business as Aegis Aerospace, were among the seven companies selected to receive the funding from NASA's Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for Deployment and Exploration (STRIDE) initiative.

According to the release from NASA, the companies are tasked with creating "innovative mobility systems" that would allow future Mars missions to access more challenging terrain and difficult-to-reach regions of the planet, and to travel farther distances. NASA estimated that the work will begin this fall.

NASA solicited proposals for participants in the STRIDE initiative in January. The seven named companies are the first selected to participate in the program.

The additional five companies to receive STRIDE funding include:

"STRIDE demonstrates NASA’s commitment to strong public-private partnerships, allowing the agency to explore new approaches for Mars surface exploration while identifying key capability gaps and development needs for commercial systems that could operate and traverse realistic Martian environments," NASA shared in the announcement.

Last month, Intuitive Machines was awarded $148.3 million to deliver its Nova-C lander to the moon. The funding was part of $600 million the space agency awarded to three companies as part of its Moon Base Program and was Intuitive Machines' sixth task order under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Astrobotic was also one of the companies to land funding for the Moon Base program, as well as Austin-based Firefly Aerospace.

Around the same time, Firefly Aerospace was awarded a $13 million subcontract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop technology for NASA’s SkyFall mission to Mars. The mission aims to deploy three Mars helicopters to "perform science and demonstrate airborne subsurface mapping and resource prospecting on the planet." Read more here.

SpaceX launches Starship test flight with most advanced Starlinks to date

Out in Space

SpaceX’s mammoth Starship rocket blasted off Friday, July 24, on another test flight stretching halfway around the world, this time releasing 20 of the most advanced Starlinks.

Towering 407 feet, Starship soared from the company’s base at the southern tip of Texas. NASA monitored the space-skimming flight, a critical step toward using the Starship as a lunar lander for moon crews.

The hourlong journey ended with a splashdown so soft that the spacecraft remained afloat in the Indian Ocean as the SpaceX webcast drew to a close, drawing cheers from employees back at the launch site.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX had replaced six of the 33 engines on the first-stage booster after they failed to ignite earlier in July, resulting in a last-second launch abort. The previous Starship flight in May also experienced engine trouble, which prevented the booster from making a controlled return.

This time, all of the engines fired at liftoff, but not enough of them lit back up for the booster's return, causing it to descend too fast and slam into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft continued soaring eastward, popping out the Starlinks one by one 124 miles up before reentering.

It was the 13th flight of the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket, and the second this year of the new version dubbed V3. Like the previous demo, neither the booster nor spacecraft was meant to be saved, instead plunging into the sea.

The stainless steel, retro-looking spacecraft hovered upright over the Indian Ocean before lowering into the water, more than 10,000 miles from where the flight began.

It was the best reentry yet, according to SpaceX, with the intact booster floating amid just a few flames. Previous flights ended with the spacecraft engulfed in flames and exploding at splashdown — or rupturing in midair.

“We're really pumped about this,” said SpaceX engineer Kate Tice, calling it “lucky flight 13.”

The Starlinks accomplished all their jobs before reentering over the Indian Ocean.

After being ejected from the Starship’s Pez-like dispenser, the Starlinks managed to communicate via lasers with older Starlink models already in orbit. With more than 10,000 Starlinks currently providing internet, SpaceX boasts the world’s largest satellite constellation.

Six of the newly launched Starlinks carried cameras that photographed Starship’s heat shield at flight's end, beaming back amazingly crisp shots even as the spacecraft bobbed in the ocean. The heat shield was also equipped with sensors to measure the extreme pressure placed on the spacecraft during launch. Most of the heat shield’s thermal tiles were black, but some were deliberately painted white to simulate missing tiles, part of an experiment to test the shield’s robustness.

"We got all the heat shield data we needed and then some!" Musk said on X.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman offered congratulations. “Excited for what will be learned from this mission,” Isaacman noted on X.

SpaceX wants to make sure Starship’s heat shield can withstand the heat of entry before trying to return it to the Starbase launch pad near the Texas-Mexico border. The company already has used a pair of giant mechanical arms at the pad to capture a Starship booster. The company plans to do the same with the actual spacecraft, which is designed to be totally reusable.

NASA needs Starship to wrap up testing and reach orbit soon so the Artemis III astronauts — three Americans and one Italian — can practice docking their capsule with it next year.

Starship is also the vehicle with which Musk intends to build a city on Mars. He's already booking tourist trips to Mars, as well as the moon.

The latest test flight was delayed first by the July 16 launch abort, then again July 23 by thick clouds from Tropical Storm Bertha.

University of Houston debuts UH Health, expanding collaborative health care and research efforts

health care hub

The University of Houston has announced its cross-disciplinary academic venture, UH Health.

It will align UH’s efforts in education, research and clinical partnerships to create new opportunities to advance research and innovation, community impact, and education, according to a news release.

“From opening the state’s first college of optometry to developing groundbreaking vaccines, improving the health of all Texans has been a UH priority for decades,” UH President Renu Khator said in the release. “Now, with the launch of UH Health, we are bringing together the full strength of our health enterprise to expand our reach, advance research and transform the future of health for our communities.”

UH is adopting a fully collaborative model, with health professionals from various concentrations to help better understand overall patient care, which includes factors like clinical, behavioral and social factors that can influence health outcomes.

UH Health will also have partnerships with HCA Healthcare, Memorial Hermann Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center and other Texas Medical Center facilities. In addition, UH Health will work with DHR Health in the Rio Grande Valley to create new opportunities for health care education, workforce development and research in one of Texas' medically underserved regions.

As part of UH Health, UH Health Family Care Center will provide integrated primary care and mental health services to the University and its surrounding communities at affordable prices to serve the Third Ward, East End and South Houston. The Household-Centered Care program will give students opportunities to work directly with community caregivers through patient home visits, while the 3rd Ward Place of Wellness offers health screenings, preventive services, education and other resources designed to support long-term health and well-being, according to UH. The College of Optometry will continue to see children and families via outreach programs and clinics across the community.

UH Health also aims to address shortages in health care professionals, providing a pipeline from the university to the workforce. According to the Texas Hospital Association, 64 percent of hospitals in the state are operating with reduced services and fewer beds due to staff shortages.

“Preparing the next generation of health care leaders is one of the most important investments we can make in the future of our state,” Jonathan McCullers, vice president for health affairs at UH and dean of the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine at UH, added in the release. “UH Health is ensuring our graduates are equipped to work effectively in today’s complex healthcare environment.”

Additionally, UH shared it is investing $77 million into a 55,000-square-foot medical research facility aimed at boosting interdisciplinary research and scientific discovery.

“Healthcare is no longer delivered in isolation, and complex health challenges require coordinated solutions,” McCullers added. “UH Health allows us to work across disciplines to tackle health challenges, advance research and improve outcomes for patients and our community.”

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