Houston shines among top 10 tech metros in the South, study says

Tops in Tech

Houston leads the charge for patents in the South. Photo via Getty Images

A study analyzing top U.S. locales for the tech industry ranked Houston the No. 9 best tech hub in the South.

The report by commercial real estate platform CommercialCafe examined the top 20 Southern metros across nine metrics, such as the growth rates of tech establishments and employment, median tech earnings, a quality of life index, and more.

Like other Texas metros, the study attributes Houston's tech powerhouse status to its growing presence of major tech companies. However, Houston leads the nation with the highest number of patents granted between 2020 and 2024.

"The second-largest metro by population in the South, Houston led the region with an impressive 8,691 tech patent grants in the last five years," the report said. "Once synonymous with oil, Houston is increasingly making its mark as a cleantech hub — and patents reflect this shift."

Houston also experienced an impressive 14 percent growth in tech establishments, with nearly 500 new tech companies moving to the metro. An impressive 32 percent job growth rate also accompanied this change, with over 30,500 tech jobs added between 2019 and 2023.

Here's how Houston stacked up across the remaining five rankings:
  • No. 11 – Tech establishment density
  • No. 15 – Median tech earnings
  • No. 19 – Median tech earnings growth
  • No. 20 – Tech job density
  • No. 20 – Quality of life index

In a separate 2024 report, Houston was the No. 22 best tech city nationwide, showing that the city is certainly making efforts to improve its friendliness toward the tech industry in 2025.

Other top Texas tech hubs in the South
The only other Texas metros to earn spots in the report were Austin (No. 1) and Dallas-Fort Worth (No. 4). Most notably, CommercialCafe says Austin saw a 25 percent increase in tech company density from 2019 to 2023, which is the third-highest growth rate out of all 20 metros.

"Moreover, the metro’s tech scene thrives on a diverse range of segments, including AI and green energy (bolstered by the University of Texas), as well as globally recognized events like [South by Southwest]," the report says. "Thus, with tech companies accounting for more than half of all office leasing activity in 2024, Austin remains a magnet for innovation, talent and investment."

Dallas, on the other hand, has a far greater diversity when it comes to its tech sector and its thriving economic opportunities.

"Not to be outdone, Dallas-Fort Worth moved up from sixth to fourth in this year’s rankings, driven by a 25.9 percent growth in tech company presence — the second-highest increase among the top 20 metros," the report said. "For instance, companies like iRely (which relocated to Irving, Texas) and Diversified (now in Plano, Texas) have joined homegrown successes, such as StackPath and Bestow."

The top 10 best tech metros in the South are:

  • No. 1 – Washington, D.C.
  • No. 2 – Austin, Texas
  • No. 3 – Raleigh, North Carolina
  • No. 4 – Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
  • No. 5 – Huntsville, Alabama
  • No. 6 – Baltimore, Maryland
  • No. 7 – Durham, North Carolina
  • No. 8 – Atlanta, Georgia
  • No. 9 – Houston, Texas
  • No. 10 – Charlotte, North Carolina
---

This story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

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A report by web-hosting company Hostinger showed that Texas is making one of the biggest impacts on the digital economy. Photo via Getty Images

Texas lands top 10 spot in new future of tech study

report

Texas is among the top 10 states making the biggest investments in digital innovation, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by web-hosting company Hostinger, puts Texas in eighth place among the states when it comes to these key metrics:

  • Financial impact of the digital economy
  • Amount of venture capital and grants received by digital startups
  • Number of government-run tech hubs
  • Presence of top-rated business incubators

“To many, the Texas story is one of oil magnates and real estate tycoons. But in recent decades, the state has emerged as an innovation and high-tech hub,” according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

On a scale of 1 to 100, Texas received a score of 79. California nabbed the top spot with a score of 100. Appearing behind California and ahead of Texas in the ranking are:

  • No. 2: New York
  • No. 3: Washington
  • No. 4: Illinois
  • No. 5: Massachusetts
  • No. 6: Missouri
  • No. 7: Wisconsin

In terms of ranking factors, Texas benefited the most from landing at No. 2 among the states for its impact on the digital economy. The study pegged Texas’ digital economic impact at $141.7 billion, well below California’s impact of $492.8 billion.

Hostinger relied primarily on government data on 31 states to come up with the ranking. “The research provides a detailed ranking based on a composite score that reflects each state's overall investment and capacity for digital innovation,” the company says.

More than 30,000 businesses in Texas participate in the digital economy, according to the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA). Those businesses employ more than 633,000 people and account for over six percent of the state’s GDP, a key measure of economic strength.

“As technology companies face increasing scrutiny through state and national legislation and litigation, it’s crucial to recognize the significant positive impacts of the digital economy that resonate across the United States,” says the CCIA.

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Over the past several years, there's been a continuous conversation about the iconic Astrodome and what should be done with it. Dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World," Houstonians certainly don't want to see the Astrodome go, as it is a landmark deeply embedded into the hearts and minds of our beloved city.

Ideas have been thrown around, yet none of them seem to stick. The $105 million county-approved plan to renovate and build a multi-story parking garage that was approved under Judge Ed Emmett's court in 2018 has been placed on hold until further notice. Continue reading.

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Houston Methodist is regularly exploring new digital health technologies, but, until recently, lacked a proper space to demonstrate their vision for the future of health care. Now, with the Center for Innovation's Technology Hub, the hospital has just that.

The tech hub opened earlier this month in Houston Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. The 3,500-square-foot tech testing ground was renovated from an 18-room patient wing and showcases new digital health technologies like virtual reality, ambient listening, wearables, voice control, and more. Continue reading.

Houston in-seat ordering app gets rodeo ready, prepares for busy XFL season

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Houston-based sEATz, through its partnership with Aramark and NRG Stadium, will be serving up stadium food to rodeo goers this year every single night of the show. Rather than be intimidated the size and scale of Rodeo Houston, sEATz, equipped with a recently upgraded app, is ready for the challenge. Continue reading.

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A year and a half after Houston was left off the list of 20 cities Amazon was pursuing for its second United States headquarters, the tech giant chose the Bayou City to house its 18th North American Tech Hub.

Amazon opened the doors of the hub on Friday, July 26, in 25,000-square-feet of space in CITYCENTRE, and the company has plans to hire to round out its team of 150 Amazon Web Services employees to work out of the hub.

"We're looking forward to becoming a bigger part of the Houston community," says Kris Satterthwaite, Gulf Coast enterprise sales leader of AWS, in a release. "Houston is a fantastic place to live and work, and has a strong local economy that we look forward to investing in and growing together." Continue reading the story.

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Grab was founded by Mark Bergsrud, who worked in senior leadership roles for almost 20 years at Continental Airlines and then United Airlines, following the merger. For Bergsrud, Grab feels like another major mobile game changer the industry experienced. Continue reading the story.

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Amazon has invested over $10 billion into Texas since 2010. Photo via blog.aboutamazon.com

Amazon opens newest Tech Hub in Houston and plans to hire

It's 'zon

A year and a half after Houston was left off the list of 20 cities Amazon was pursuing for its second United States headquarters, the tech giant chose the Bayou City to house its 18th North American Tech Hub.

Amazon opened the doors of the hub on Friday, July 26, in 25,000-square-feet of space in CITYCENTRE, and the company has plans to hire to round out its team of 150 Amazon Web Services employees to work out of the hub.

"We're looking forward to becoming a bigger part of the Houston community," says Kris Satterthwaite, Gulf Coast enterprise sales leader of AWS, in a release. "Houston is a fantastic place to live and work, and has a strong local economy that we look forward to investing in and growing together."

The city of Houston, along with the Greater Houston Partnership, has worked to make Houston appealing to big business and tech giants, says Susan Davenport, senior vice president of economic development at the GHP.

"The expansion of Amazon's Houston workforce is indicative of a larger trend we are seeing of the major cloud players opting to locate their teams closer to their customers here in Houston," Davenport says in an email to InnovationMap. "Our energy, life sciences and manufacturing sectors are data-intensive, and this move makes a lot of sense. This is not the first, and I doubt it will be the last. A great portion of the digital tech industry's activity to this point has been focused on business-to-consumer, and is now shifting to business-to-business. Houston is largely a B2B city, so we stand to gain from this trend."

The Tech Hubs in North America have over 20,000 employees. Around 1,000 of those are from Amazon's Austin Tech Hub, which opened around four years ago and was recently announced to be in the process of expanding to include another 800 Austin employees, per the Wall Street Journal.

The company has invested $10 billion into Texas since 2010, according to the release, and Houston's diversity, universities, and quality of life were attractive to Amazon.

"Houston is such a culturally diverse city, with so many international companies based here," says Eddie Murray, global accounts lead, in a release. "We're excited to create great jobs and hire locally to boost the local economy while also giving back to the community through programs like Amazon Future Engineer."

The Amazon Future Engineer program is an initiative to help propel kids from under-served areas into careers in computer science. The program is in 35 Houston schools. Amazon also provided disaster relief aid after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

"We have worked for the last couple of years to accelerate the growth of Houston's digital tech ecosystem, and we've got quite a bit of momentum with The Ion, TMC3, The Cannon, and so many others," Davenport adds. "The opening of Amazon's tech hub is another indicator of Houston's growing presence as an innovation-focused city."

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Texas ranks among 10 best states to find a job, says new report

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If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

“Texas is America’s jobs leader,” Abbott says. “With the best business climate in the nation and a skilled and growing labor force, Texas is where businesses invest, jobs grow, and families thrive. Texas will continue to cut red tape and invest in businesses large and small to spur the economic growth of communities across our great state.”

While Abbott proclaims Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

  • Austin — 3.9 percent
  • Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
  • Houston — 5 percent
  • San Antonio — 4.4 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

Autonomous truck co. goes public and more innovation news to know

Trending News

Editor's note: It's time to catch up on the top Houston innovation news for the first half of November. From major investments to a big boost in dementia research, here are the most-read InnovationMap stories from Nov. 1-15, 2025:

1. Autonomous truck company with Houston routes goes public

Kodiak Robotics has formed Kodiak AI, whose stock now trades on the Nasdaq market. Photo via kodiak.ai.

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Texas voters on Nov. 4 overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure that provides $3 billion in state funding over a 10-year span for the newly established Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (DPRIT). Thanks to the passage of Proposition 14, Texas now boasts the country’s largest state-funded initiative dedicated to dementia research and prevention, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Up to $300 million in grants will be awarded during the 10-year funding period. Continue reading.

5. 2025 Houston Innovation Awards winners revealed at annual event

2025 Innovation Awards group photo2025 Houston Innovation Awards winners revealed at annual eventThe 2025 Houston Innovation Awards winners have been revealed. Courtesy photo

After weeks of anticipation, the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards winners have been revealed. Finalists, judges, and VIPs from Houston's vibrant innovation community gathered on Nov. 13 at Greentown Labs for the fifth annual event. This year, the Houston Innovation Awards recognized more than 40 finalists, with winners unveiled in 10 categories. Continue reading.

TMC, Memorial Hermann launch partnership to spur new patient care technologies

medtech partnership

Texas Medical Center and Memorial Hermann Health System have launched a new collaboration for developing patient care technology.

Through the partnership, Memorial Hermann employees and physicians will now be able to participate in the TMC Center for Device Innovation (CDI), which will assist them in translating product innovation ideas into working prototypes. The first group of entrepreneurs will pitch their innovations in early 2026, according to a release from TMC.

“Memorial Hermann is excited to launch this new partnership with the TMC CDI,” Ini Ekiko Thomas, vice president of information technology at Memorial Hermann, said in the news release. “As we continue to grow (a) culture of innovation, we look forward to supporting our employees, affiliated physicians and providers in new ways.”

Mentors from Memorial Hermann, TMC Innovation and industry experts with specialties in medicine, regulatory strategy, reimbursement planning and investor readiness will assist with the program. The innovators will also gain access to support systems like product innovation and translation strategy, get dedicated engineering and machinist resources and personal workbench space at the CDI.

“The prototyping facilities and opportunities at TMC are world-class and globally recognized, attracting innovators from around the world to advance their technologies,” Tom Luby, chief innovation officer at TMC Innovation Factor, said in the release.

Memorial Hermann says the partnership will support its innovation hub’s “pilot and scale approach” and hopes that it will extend the hub’s impact in “supporting researchers, clinicians and staff in developing patentable, commercially viable products.”

“We are excited to expand our partnership with Memorial Hermann and open the doors of our Center for Device Innovation to their employees and physicians—already among the best in medical care,” Luby added in the release. “We look forward to seeing what they accomplish next, utilizing our labs and gaining insights from top leaders across our campus.”

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