Starbucks perks up Houston minority communities as part of $100 million investment

grande investment

That next Frappuccino could help support BIPOC-owned businesses. Courtesy of Starbucks

The Bayou City will be a major beneficiary of a new initiative from Starbucks. The Seattle-based, global coffee giant announced that it has selected Houston as one of 12 U.S. cities that will receive funds from the Starbucks Community Resilience Fund.

Seeded with a $100 million investment, the fund will be used to support small businesses and community development projects in BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and people of color) neighborhoods. In addition to Houston, the program will launch in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington D.C.

"Starbucks has always been a company focused on caring for our partners, creating experiences for our customers and playing a positive role in our communities and throughout society," Kevin Johnson, Starbucks president and CEO, said in a statement. "We are excited to make this investment as it aligns with our mission and values and supports our aspiration to advance equity and opportunity in the communities we serve."

Working with partners such as the Opportunity Finance Network, Starbucks will select certain Community Development Financial Institutions that will receive funds. CDFIs focus on providing capital and promoting economic development. These institutions will then provide loans to small businesses and community development projects. In addition to money, CDFIs offer mentorship and flexible repayment terms that help projects become successful.

Specific Houston beneficiaries are still unknown at this time, but the funds have the potential to benefit a diverse array of projects, including those focused on addressing the impacts of climate change and investments in neighborhoods that are overlooked by traditional lenders.

For example, as part of a $10 million investment in four, Chicago-based CDFIs, Starbucks helped fund Green Era Sustainability's campus project that includes a 2-acre clean energy generation facility, an urban farm, green houses, an outdoor fresh produce market, a visitor center with classrooms for community activities, and a STEM education center. The project will create 247 construction jobs and 25 permanent jobs in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

"Given the severe impact of the pandemic on the long-disinvested communities CCLF serves, our lending is more important than ever to help these communities grow and thrive," said Bob Tucker, COO for the Chicago Community Loan Fund. "Our customers have urgent needs, and Starbucks investment in CCLF will help tremendously in bringing them the resources they need."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

The coffee company announced three Houston-area solar projects. Courtesy of Starbucks

Starbucks brews up solar energy initiative across Houston and Texas

Green coffee

Coffee shop chain Starbucks is plugging into Texas' solar energy industry in a big way.

Two 10-megawatt solar farms in Texas owned by Cypress Creek Renewables LLC are providing enough energy for the equivalent of 360 Starbuck stores, including locations in Houston, Humble, Katy, and Spring. Separately, Starbucks has invested in six other Texas solar farms owned by Cypress Creek, representing 50 megawatts of solar energy; Santa Monica, California-based Cypress Creek is selling that power to other customers.

Three of the eight solar farms in the Texas portfolio are just outside the Houston metro area. One is in the Fort Bend County town of Beasley, while two of the projects are in Wallis and Wharton.

Starbucks already relies on a North Carolina solar farm equipped with 149,000 panels to deliver solar energy equivalent to powering 600 Starbucks stores in North Carolina, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

"Our long-standing commitment to renewable energy supports our greener-retail initiative and demonstrates our aspiration to sustainable coffee, served sustainably," Rebecca Zimmer, Starbucks' director of global environmental impact, says in an April 15 release about its solar investment in Texas. "Now, we are investing in new, renewable energy projects in our store communities, which we know is something our partners and customers can appreciate for their local economy and for the environment."

The solar commitment in Texas aligns with Starbucks' goal of designing, building, and operating 10,000 "greener" company-owned stores around the world by 2025. The Seattle-based retailer expects this initiative — whose features include renewable energy, energy efficiency, and waste reduction — to cut $50 million in utility costs over the next 10 years.

U.S. Bank's community development division teamed up with Starbucks and Cypress Creek on the Texas solar farms. Chris Roetheli, a business development officer at U.S. Bank, says solar tax equity investments like those undertaken by Starbucks are growing in popularity among non-traditional investors.

"Starbucks is taking a unique approach — investing in solar farms regionally to support a specific group of its stores," Roetheli says in the announcement of the solar collaboration. "This is a new concept, and one that I think other companies are watching and may follow. It's an interesting model that allows them to talk specifically about the impact of their investments."

Starbucks' investment comes as Texas' stature in the solar energy sector keeps rising, along with the state's role in the wind energy industry.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, more than 2,900 megawatts of solar capacity are installed in Texas. That's enough energy to power nearly 350,000 homes. Among the states, Texas ranks fifth for the amount of installed solar capacity.

Solar investment in Texas exceeds $4.5 billion, with about 650 solar companies operating statewide, the association says. The solar energy industry employs more than 13,000 full-time and part-time workers in Texas, according to the Texas Solar Power Association.

With more than 4 gigawatts (over 7,000 megawatts) of solar capacity expected to be added in Texas over the next five years, the national solar association reported in 2018 that "Texas is poised to become a nationwide leader in solar energy … ."

As it stands now, though, solar supplies less than 1 percent of Texas' electricity.

A 2018 state-by-state report card for friendliness toward solar power assigned a "C" to Texas, putting it in 34th place among the states.

The report card, released by SolarPowerRocks.com, lauds the backing of big Texas cities like Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio in encouraging residential solar installations.

However, the report card adds, outlying areas in Texas lag their urban counterparts in support of residential solar, "and we'd like lawmakers here to codify more protections and goals for solar adoption, but in the most populous areas, the Lone Star [State] shines."

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Houston college joins inaugural workforce accelerator supported by Google

hands-on training

Houston City College (HCC) is one of 15 community colleges from around the country to be selected for the first-ever Workforce Futures Accelerator.

The three-year effort is supported by Google.org, the tech company’s philanthropic arm, and led by the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), a non-profit educational organization that represents over 500 community, junior, and technical colleges. The accelerator focuses on helping colleges embed virtual, employer-sponsored training opportunities into short-term workforce training programs, giving participants access to opportunities that they might otherwise receive through internships or other "work-based learning" stints.

"The Workforce Futures Accelerator reflects the Houston City College mission of offering a high-quality, affordable education for workforce training and career development," Pretta VanDible Stallworth, HCC trustee and chair-elect of the ACCT board of directors, said in a news release. "Advancing student success and creating pathways to opportunities ensures that our students are well equipped to succeed and build a secure future in today's economy.”

Through the accelerator, HCC is tasked with fusing online project-based learning opportunities with its workforce education programs. The idea is to give students hands-on experiences working on projects sponsored by employers, allowing them to gain real-world knowledge in the process.

HCC will select two workforce programs that meet the accelerator’s criteria and insert into them into coursework. In the second and third year of the accelerator, the selected colleges are expected to scale the programs by adding instructors and programs to develop a network of to support their continued implementation.

“Participation by HCC will strengthen how we provide students with career-connected learning experiences that complement their classroom education and align with the needs of employers,” HCC Chancellor Margaret Ford Fisher added in the news release. “We are focused on ‘future forward’ strategies to meet the present and future needs of our region’s businesses.”

Two other Texas colleges were chosen to participate in the accelerator: Lamar Institute of Technology in Beaumont and Grayson College in Denison.

The remaining cohort includes:

  • Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey
  • Central Louisiana Community College in Alexandria, Louisiana
  • Clark State College in Springfield, Ohio
  • Great Basin College in Elko, Nevada
  • Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois
  • Hudson County Community College in Jersey City, New Jersey
  • Manchester Community College in Manchester, New Hampshire
  • Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona
  • Mohave College in Kingman, Arizona
  • San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton, California
  • San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico
  • West Virginia University Parkersburg in Parkersburg, West Virginia

New report ranks Texas among top 10 states where AI could disrupt jobs

AI Workforce

A new nationwide report examining where AI could "reshape" the most jobs has ranked Texas No. 9 among the most at-risk states for AI job disruption.

The new SmartAsset report compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia to calculate the estimated percent of the workforce employed in the 26 occupations with the highest AI exposure, as determined by June 2026 research by the Virginia Economic Information and Analytics Division.

The findings revealed that 500,000 Texas workers, or 3.55 percent of the total workforce, are employed in occupations with "high exposure to potential AI disruption."

This also places the Lone Star State as the 9th most at-risk state in the U.S. where AI exposure can lead to "declining hiring demand, wage pressure, task automation, and other forms of disruption."

"States with larger concentrations of highly exposed occupations could experience more pronounced labor-market changes, particularly in roles where core tasks are more vulnerable to AI-driven restructuring," the report's author wrote.

Texas' biggest cities, like Houston and Austin, are known for their thriving tech and business industries, and the study noted that many of the occupations within those sectors are the most at risk. The Virginia Economic Information and Analytics Division said the top five most AI-exposed occupations in the U.S. are: mathematicians, proofreaders, correspondence clerks, court reporters, and media and communication workers. Additionally, computer programmers, database administrators, web developers, telephone operators, and communications equipment operators round out the top 10 most at-risk positions.

These are the 16 remaining occupations most exposed to AI disruption, in order:

  • Data Entry Keyers
  • Statistical Assistants
  • Office Support Workers
  • Interpreters and Translators
  • Database Architects
  • Software Quality Assurance Analysts
  • Medical Transcriptionists
  • Software Developers
  • Writers and Authors
  • Payroll Clerks
  • Web Designers
  • Miscellaneous Computer Occupations
  • Insurance Claims Processors
  • Telemarketers
  • Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Programmers
  • Bookkeeping and Accounting Clerks

A separate SmartAsset report from April 2026 found about 20.5 percent of Texas workers use AI to do their jobs in some capacity. That trend will continue to shift further as employers and employees choose to adopt — or reject — AI implementation.

Across the U.S., Washington topped the list as the state with the highest concentration of AI-exposed jobs, with nearly 5.7 percent of the state's workforce employed in the 26 most at-risk positions. SmartAsset said Washington's high prevalence of technology companies is a significant factor that skyrocketed the state to the top of the list.

"Home to major technology companies including Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile and Expedia, the state has large numbers of computer programmers and software developers, two occupations with high exposure," the report said.

Meanwhile, Mississippi ranked No. 51 with the lowest concentration of AI-exposed jobs in the nation. About 22,500 workers in Mississippi, or 1.93 percent of its workforce, are at risk for AI disruption.

The top 10 states where AI could reshape the most jobs are:

  • No. 1 – Washington
  • No. 2 – Virginia
  • No. 3 – District of Columbia
  • No. 4 – California
  • No. 5 – Utah
  • No. 6 – Maryland
  • No. 7 – Colorado
  • No. 8 – New Hampshire
  • No. 9 – Texas
  • No. 10 – North Carolina
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

UH lands $1.2M NIH grant to fight superbugs using AI, quantum sensing

drug defense

The fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA is getting science fiction-like upgrades at the University of Houston thanks to a new four-year, $1.26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The university says the recent funding brings total federal support up to $3.5 million for 11 years for the project, which uses AI and quantum-sensing technology to better understand how bacterial proteins develop resistance to drugs.

Any medical professional will tell you that one of the worst things that can happen is almost killing an infection. Bacteria that survive attacks from conventional antibiotic treatments emerge tougher, more resistant and more aggressive than before–making them much harder to treat. A good example is the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

UH chemistry professors Yuhong Wang and Shoujun Xu are working on this issue. They know full well that fighting superbugs requires new technology and new approaches, which is what they aim to pioneer with their new grant.

“Drug-resistant bacterial infections such as MRSA are becoming harder to treat, creating an urgent need for faster ways to understand how antibiotics and other small molecules interact with bacterial proteins,” Wang said in a news release.

Wang and Xu’s work centers around GTP, a cellular fuel that can cause tiny changes to a cell's structure when it mutates. Sometimes, those shape changes make it easier for drugs to breach the wall and attack the cells.

The UH scientists are employing AlphaFold, an AI-powered tool that can scan large molecular libraries in seconds. From these models, they can see promising drug combinations for future testing.

Once identified, the team uses their invention, super-resolution force spectroscopy, to monitor the cells. Tiny magnetic beads are attached to genetic material, then magnified to see how strong that material is when pulled. They can measure this incredible microscopic process through an atomic magnetometer, typically used in quantum physics. Combined, all these tools allow a high-definition look at how each molecule might respond to new chemical approaches.

“We're the only chemists in the world that use an atomic magnetometer for biological research,” Xu said. “It's a technique developed by physicists, and there is usually a gap between techniques developed by physicists and biological applications. Yuhong and I have been bridging that gap together for the past 10 years.”

Eventually, Wang and Xu hope to develop powerful software that can be used by drug manufacturers to model cellular responses. With enough predictive data, the software could even get ahead of superbugs’ own mutation, allowing drugs to be developed before new strains arrive.

"We want an algorithm where you input a protein sequence, score the mutation hotspots, and develop new inhibitors before a drug-resistant species even emerges," Wang added.

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