Field guide
Silicon Hills is a nickname. Austin is still a place with a lake, a capitol, live oaks, and neighborhoods that do not all look like The Domain. Here’s where the AI work actually sits.
Core
Capital Factory, the Capitol, Congress Avenue, and the rooms where the calendar actually happens. If you are new, start here.
Meetups, Alliance workshops adjacent, investor density.
South
The postcard. Live oaks, independent shops, and the lake crossing that still makes people stay. Not a campus — a city.
Where visitors land. Lady Bird Lake is the city’s front lawn.
East
Warehouses, studios, and the creative half of the AI film and maker crowd. Dust, brick, and rooms that used to be something else.
Studios, informal dinners, the non-corporate map.
North
Apple’s campus, corporate towers, and the part of Austin that looks like a planned city because it is. High salaries, quiet buildings.
Apple Intelligence, big-tech offices, Domain density.
Southeast
A factory the size of a thesis. Optimus, Cybertruck, and the longest commute that is still ‘Austin.’ Physical AI at volume.
Tesla. That is the sentence.
Central
UT Austin is the city’s original AI institution. Robotics labs, health AI, and the reason several of the companies on this site exist.
Talent pipeline. Research. Apptronik’s origin story.