Last week the Austin Technology Council and the Greater Austin Chamber hosted our annual “State of Tech” luncheon. The conversation centered on Austin’s growing deep tech ecosystem: semiconductors, space, defense, robotics, advanced manufacturing, photonics, and neurotech. These are the technologies pushing Austin past the software and SaaS reputation we built over the last few decades.
I left optimistic. I also left thinking our biggest opportunity isn’t any single technology. It’s whether we can finally start seeing ourselves as One Austin.
For years people talked about Austin’s “business community” and Austin’s “technology community” as if they were separate groups that occasionally crossed paths. That distinction no longer holds. Look at who employs people across Central Texas. Technology companies dominate the list, and most of the firms we’d file under healthcare, financial services, retail, or manufacturing are now deeply technology-enabled. Technology isn’t one industry in the Austin economy anymore. It’s woven through all of it, and deep tech will only make that more true.
Deep tech changes the conversation
Austin’s tech story has moved through chapters. We were a government and university town. We became a semiconductor and computing center. We built one of the strongest startup communities in the country. Global companies expanded here, entrepreneurs built here, capital followed talent, and talent followed opportunity.
Another chapter is emerging, and it’s different. Deep tech usually takes more than a few people, laptops, and venture money. It takes labs, manufacturing, specialized talent, university research, serious capital, energy, water, land, and long-term government cooperation. That raises the stakes on collaboration.
The future of semiconductors here isn’t just a semiconductor issue. Space and defense don’t only matter to the people working in those companies. Advances in AI, robotics, energy, quantum, and life sciences will shape our workforce, universities, housing, and transportation.
Austin is well positioned. We rank among the nation’s leaders in STEM employment, venture capital keeps flowing into Central Texas, UT remains a major research engine, and we have an unusual mix of startups, established companies, manufacturing depth, and experienced executives. But being well positioned guarantees nothing. Other cities want this future too.
Stop choosing sides
Here’s the choice I think we face. People are good at building tribes: insiders and outsiders, old Austin and new Austin, startups and big companies, tech people and business people, the ones who moved here 30 years ago and the ones who moved here 30 days ago. There will always be differences, and there should be. A vibrant city doesn’t require everyone to agree. But we have to stop confusing disagreement with division.
Newcomers who dismiss the people and institutions that spent decades building this place are being arrogant. Austin didn’t become innovative the day they arrived. And those of us who’ve been here for decades can’t eye every new arrival with suspicion and complain they’re ruining the city. That’s just as shortsighted. Many of the people showing up now bring ideas, capital, and relationships that can help write Austin’s next chapter. Both groups need each other.
Austin was founded in 1839. Change isn’t new here. The city changed when UT opened, when semiconductor companies arrived, when MCC and Sematech put us on the tech map, when Dell grew out of a dorm room, and through every boom since: dot-com, software, and each population wave. There was never a version of Austin that stayed the same. The question isn’t whether Austin will change. It’s what we’ll do with the change.
Community as competitive advantage
Deep tech is a chance to think differently about economic development. Our biggest advantage may not be landing another company or celebrating another funding round. It may be becoming the place where people across the ecosystem actually know each other, trust each other, and work together: universities and entrepreneurs, established companies and startups, investors and scientists, government and business, longtime Austinites and newcomers who bring outside connections without assuming everything before them was wrong.
That’s where community and collaboration stop being nice words and start being economic infrastructure. The next chapter of Austin innovation will require people who wouldn’t normally share a room to start talking, and leaders willing to show up beyond their own company, industry, or neighborhood.
One Austin
I believe Austin can become one of the most important deep tech centers in the world. We already have most of the ingredients. The one that matters most can’t be built in a lab or coded into an algorithm: our willingness to see ourselves as part of something larger.
Austin doesn’t need to erase its history to embrace its future, and it doesn’t need to fear the future to protect what makes it special. We need the people who built Austin, the people building it now, and the people who’ll arrive tomorrow with ideas none of us have considered.
Spend the next decade looking for reasons to divide, and other regions will take the opportunities we miss. Get intentional about building connections across industries, generations, and institutions, and Austin can do something much bigger.
Deep tech may be the next chapter of the Austin economy. One Austin is how we should write it.
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Thom Singer is the CEO of the Austin Technology Council and an advocate for the continued growth of Austin’s tech ecosystem. But he cautions that complacency or turf wars will undermine the long term opportunities for Central Texas. Now in his role at ATC for over 4 years, he has talked to hundreds of tech leaders about what makes Austin special. The answer is always connected to “the people”. But in our current situation we are seeing more walls and divisions. While not every event can be open to everyone, he is an evangelist for the need for strong business non-profits that are charged with helping Austin navigate the changes and keep people having the hard conversations.
Thom Singer is also a professional keynote speaker who speaks to capable people who are surrounded by contacts, but starved for real business relationships. He shows them how to build the community and trust everyone wants, so that connection becomes the advantage that moves their career and business forward.