Report: Houston ranks in the top 10 life sciences markets in the U.S.

rising star

The Bayou City also ranks as the No. 1 life science market in the state. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Houston has received a big thumbs-up in a new study ranking the country’s top metro areas for life sciences companies to launch or grow.

The study, published by commercial real estate platform CommercialCafe, puts Houston at No. 10 among the top U.S. metros in the life sciences sector and No. 1 in Texas. Boston topped CommercialCafe’s ranking, with Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 16, San Antonio at No. 29, and Austin at No. 37.

For the study, CommercialCafe examined various factors that support the success of a life sciences ecosystem. The study encompassed 45 major metros in the U.S. Among the highlights for Houston:

  • No. 9 ranking for educational attainment, with 733,577 of residents ages 25 year and older holding at least a bachelor’s degree in science, engineering, or an engineering-related field.
  • No. 12 ranking for life sciences projects under development (a little over 817,000 square feet). Overall, the life sciences sector occupies roughly 2.3 million square feet in the Houston area.

Last month, commercial real estate services company CBRE put Houston at No. 13 among the country’s top 25 clusters for life sciences research talent. DFW appeared at No. 16 and Austin at No. 18.

In assessing Houston’s strength in life sciences, CommercialCafe says that “the resilient Texas powerhouse was lifted by the wave of emerging life sciences clusters across the U.S.”

Two major projects are helping Houston maintain that powerhouse status. The Texas Medical Center (TMC) last year unveiled TMC3, a 37-acre, roughly 6 million-square-foot life sciences campus, and Houston-based Hines recently topped out the 270,000-square-foot first phase of the 53-acre Levit Green life sciences district next to TMC.

“Houston is already fortunate to have such a strong healthcare and higher education ecosystem. The TMC3 project stands to be the cornerstone of our regional life sciences strategy. It will create new jobs, [and] advance innovative medical technologies and healthcare solutions,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in 2021.

According to Greater Houston Partnership data, the Houston area is home to Houston has more than 1,760 life sciences companies, hospitals, health care facilities, and research institutions. Collectively, the life sciences and healthcare sectors employ 320,500 people in the region.

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Where are all those new Newstonians coming from? Texas. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

Houston named on a new list of most popular places to move to in the U.S.

Still booming

A new study shows Texas' major metros are some of the hottest places to move to in the U.S. — and Houston tops them all.

Real estate site CommercialCafe recently looked at "metro-to-metro" migration to see which areas are "winning" in terms of new residents, and a trio of Lone Star cities appears in the top five.

With an average net gain of 32,821 residents, Houston ranks third overall. Dallas-Fort Worth, with an average net gain of 30,639, follows at fourth. And Austin, with an average net gain of 26,733 people, is fifth. (The migration data was based on U.S. Census yearly average estimates for 2013-2017.)

"Among the three Texas metros on our list, Houston saw the largest population increase through metro-to-metro migration," says the report.

So where are these new residents coming from? Elsewhere in Texas. Houston gained the most new residents from DFW (16,306), followed by Austin (9,304) and San Antonio (7,443).

Those are also the most popular locations for Houston residents to move to. On average, more than 15,000 Houston residents relocated to DFW, followed closely by Austin (14,082) and San Antonio (8,692).

Houston's growth "is visible in Space City's many business districts, which added almost 18 million square feet of office space between 2013 and 2017, according to Yardi Matrix data," says the report. "This amount surpasses that of any other metro in the top 10. The Houston housing market is also on the upswing. The number of housing units here increased by an average of 2.1 percent — or 52,841 units — each year."

Outside of Texas, the report shows that folks are flocking to Phoenix (No. 1) and California's Inland Empire (No. 2).

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Houston came in at No. 5 for best cities — with populations of more than 1 million residents — for startups. Photo by Tim Leviston/Getty Images

Houston named among the best large cities for early-stage startups

Start up here

When it comes to cities with over a million residents, Houston's at the front of the pack, according to a new study. But, there's a catch.

Last month, Commercial Cafe rounded up the 20 top cities for early-stage startups and entrepreneurs, and Houston missed the list. Now, the commercial real estate blog has broken down the data into three top ten lists based on city size, and Houston has claimed the No. 5 spot on the list of cities with 1 million or more residents.

The study took into account education, affordability, startup financial success (calculated from Kickstarter data), millennial population growth, among other aspects. Houston in particular was called out for being the most affordable major metro and for having the third best startup survival rate.

"The city is home to the fourth-largest percentage of millennial residents out of the total population, and saw the fourth-largest growth in number of millennial residents," the report reads. "Houston ranked fifth in group for the share of population holding a bachelor's degree or higher in a tech discipline. The rate at which the number of such residents has increased placed Houston seventh for tech education growth."

Outpacing Houston on the larger cities were Dallas at No. 1, San Diego, California, at No. 2, San Jose, California, at No. 3, and Los Angeles at No. 4. San Antonio also made the list, coming in at No. 7.

Texas cities were sprinkled throughout the two smaller cities list. Austin came in at No. 1 for the cities with 500,000 to 1 million residents, as well as claimed the top spot in the best cities regardless of population. Fort Worth ranked as No. 10 on this mid-sized city list.

On the small cities list for metros with less than 500,000 residents, Arlington came in at No. 6 for its location and startup density. The city also made the top 20 regardless of size, sliding into the No. 19 spot. Dallas, which topped the large cities list, came in at No. 15 on the size agnostic list for top startup cities.

Recently, Texas was named a top city to start a company by personal finance website, WalletHub, based on similar statistics.

"[I]t's clear why Texas would come in at No. 1," Susan Davenport, senior vice president of economic development for the Greater Houston Partnership, says responding to that study. "These are all areas where the Lone Star State consistently excels and why Texas continues to attract both entrepreneurs and existing companies across industry sectors."

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Houston ranks No. 2 for share of AI talent in professional services

AI surge

Houston’s professional and business services sector—think law, accounting, consulting, and engineering firms—grabs one of the industry’s biggest shares of AI talent.

A report from commercial real estate services giant CBRE ranks Houston No. 2 among the top 50 U.S. and Canadian tech markets for the concentration of AI talent in professional and business services.

Houston’s share of AI talent in professional and business services stands at 26 percent, the report shows. Washington, D.C., tops the list at 31 percent. At 25 percent, Dallas-Fort Worth claims the No. 3 spot.

CBRE based the AI ranking on data from the LinkedIn networking platform.

The company’s researchers tallied 11,709 AI-related tech jobs in Houston. Nationwide, data scientists lead AI-related job growth in the U.S., according to the report.

“AI software and hardware developers are currently the most sought-after tech talent by employers,” the report says.

Houston faces AI talent gap

DoubleTrack, a provider of AI and data consulting, reported in June that Houston faces an AI talent gap.

“The places where businesses say they will adopt AI over the next six months, well ahead of where they are today, are mostly the same places already short on talent: Miami, Houston, and Denver among the metros, South Dakota and South Carolina among the states,” DoubleTrack said.

This labor shortage comes amid Houston’s ascent as an AI hub. For instance, a factory being built here by AI chipmaker NVIDIA and electronics manufacturer Foxconn will produce AI supercomputers and infrastructure systems.

Houston’s place in the sphere of tech talent

Overall, Houston ranks No. 32 in the CBRE report among the top 50 U.S. and Canadian markets for tech talent. The San Francisco Bay Area claims the top spot, with Austin at No. 5 and DFW at No. 8.

CBRE relied on 13 metrics to rank tech talent markets, including concentration of tech talent, tech talent pipeline, and research-and-development investments.

Here are other Houston details from the report:

  • In 2025, Houston’s tech talent workforce numbered 104,080, up 7.3 percent over the past three years.
  • Houston’s average wage for tech talent within the tech industry was $120,216 in 2025, up 13.3 percent over the past three years.

New pilot program for air taxis, Project Nexus, takes flight in Texas

Project Nexus

By 2029, Texas skies could be buzzing with air taxis, much like they are with drones today.

To kick off the "Project Nexus" pilot program in Texas, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and Texas Department of Transportation officials attended an event September 10 at Fort Worth Alliance Airport, which serves as the launchpad for a statewide pilot program that could result in air taxis, self-piloted planes, and vertical take-off-and-landing aircraft permanently buzzing across the skies of Texas.

It was the first demonstration in Texas of next-generation aircraft under the pilot program; Texas is the sixth state to participate in the program.

Air taxi service on the radar
The federal government has teamed up with aviation companies BETA Technologies and Joby Aviation, as well as the Texas Department of Transportation, to develop regional air taxi service in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and eventually Houston.

Roger Venables, Fort Worth’s aviation director, said in January that he foresees regular air taxi service becoming a reality in the next five years.

On September 12, a Joby-made electric air taxi took a roundtrip flight between Fort Worth Alliance and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to test flight operations.

The mission was part of a five-day test involving Fort Worth Alliance and DFW Airport flights, and flights over the Fort Worth Stockyards, Toyota Motor North America’s Plano headquarters, and other sites.

A new facility at Fort Worth Alliance will be Joby’s long-term home for regional flight operations.

Building a 'framework' for electric aircraft
TxDOT said Project Nexus is aimed at creating “a scalable system” to connect urban areas, rural communities, and neighboring states as air mobility technology advances.

In a TxDOT release, Marc Williams, the agency’s executive director, said the pilot program will “build a framework for how electric aircraft could one day connect people, goods, and communities across the state.”

Three-phase project will test flight capabilities

Initial flights in the third-year pilot program won’t carry passengers, according to TxDOT. Instead, the flights will gather data, validate air travel routes, and help improve the safety of air mobility technology.

The first phase of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Project Nexus will feature piloted aircraft such as helicopters and fixed-wing planes. CultureMap previously reported Plano-based VertiPorts by Atlantic, which develops takeoff and landing sites for airplane-helicopter hybrids, would be part of Project Nexus.

The second phase will involve testing airborne medical and cargo logistics. This includes transporting critical medical supplies or donor organs between rural and urban hospitals in the Austin and San Antonio areas.

In the third and final phase, passengers will fly aboard air taxis across the Texas Triangle. Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio anchor the triangle.

“In Texas, we don’t wait for the future to arrive, we build it,” Cruz said in the TxDOT release. “The Lone Star State is pushing the boundaries by testing the next generation of aircraft through Project Nexus.”

“These technologies will connect communities, expand access to jobs and services, and strengthen supply chains,” the senator added. “What starts in Texas will help shape the future of aviation throughout the entire country.”

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston-area NASA contractor plans Nasdaq IPO

going public

Webster-based NASA contractor Rothe Development Inc. has filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public.

Rothe, a minority- and woman-owned business, hasn’t yet identified how many shares it will sell and how much money its IPO might raise. Rothe plans to offer Class B common stock on the Nasdaq exchange.

CEO Karen Wheeler-Hall owns all of the Class A shares and would retain majority control after the IPO, according to the SEC filing. The company plans to use $2.4 million of the IPO proceeds so Wheeler-Hall can pay off a loan from the seller for her 2021 acquisition of Rothe.

From last December to this May, the company raised about $2.1 million in a pre-IPO private placement at $1 per share, the SEC filing shows.

Rothe runs NASA training lab in Houston

Founded in 1967, Rothe supplies engineering, technology, operations and technical services to NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, other federal agencies, commercial space operators, and regulated industries.

Rothe is likely best known for operating NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. The lab trains astronauts for spacewalks and simulates space missions. It supports NASA’s International Space Station and Artemis programs.

Company sees room for growth

In the SEC filing, Rothe said it operates in several expanding markets driven by rising investments, including space exploration, national security, cybersecurity and digital infrastructure.

“We believe these market trends create significant opportunities for continued growth across both government and commercial sectors,” the company said.

Rothe generated nearly $126.4 million in revenue last year, up from $117.3 million the previous year. However, the company swung to a $700,000 operating loss in 2025 versus $1.8 million in operating income in 2024.

At the end of 2025, Rothe’s workforce comprised 385 employees and 25 subcontractors. The company also works in the cybersecurity, computer engineering, software development, multimedia and communication, and commercial calibration sectors, according to its website.

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