State Governments Take A Big Bet On AI To Drive Innovation, Economic Development And Opportunities For Citizens

Originally published by Government Technology Insider, Jenna Sindle.

From Networks to Neighborhoods: Why Infrastructure is the Cornerstone of State AI Initiatives

State governments across the United States are betting big on AI to drive innovation, economic development and opportunities for citizens and build communities that are resilient, prosperous and future-ready. While there’s a great deal of enthusiasm around AI to deliver unprecedented change at an unprecedented pace, it takes more than use cases, a robust data governance framework and a data center to deliver the vision.

One of the most important parts of the AI revolution—the network infrastructure—is out of sight and often out of mind for state government officials charged with mission success. In much the same way that the power and water resources needed to support the data centers are essential, ensuring that states have an AI-ready network infrastructure is imperative. Without a fast, secure and fail-safe network that’s ready to handle the volume of data needed to fuel AI, workers and citizens are left frustrated, businesses can’t innovate, and economic development opportunities slip away. Let’s take a closer look at two states that are AI leaders and how they have laid the foundations for success for their citizens.

Texas: A Hub of AI Innovation

The old saying that everything is bigger in Texas certainly takes on new meaning when it comes to AI. Open AI’s decision to build a massive data center complex in Abilene, TX as part of its $500 billion Stargate initiative has put the state on the map when it comes to AI. From Texas A&M University’s participation in an elite research consortium to private sector companies and state government agencies, you could say that Texas oil fever has been replaced by Texas AI fever.

One state government agency that has embraced AI is the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).  Under the direction of CIO Anh Selissen, TxDOT has developed a three-year strategic plan to implement AI. In a recent conversation with The Eno Center for Transportation, Selissen explained that AI “can fundamentally revolutionize what we are doing and create that transformation in the transportation industry.”

In 2024 at the beginning of their strategic planning process, TxDOT built out a list of 230 AI use cases that would fundamentally change the way the agency functions, increase the value it brings to Texans and improve workforce experiences. From the list of 230 use cases, the agency’s IT team selected 22 to be rolled out during the 2025-2027 Strategic Plan period. These use cases include workforce training to optimize the use of Microsoft’s Co-Pilot to streamline work, using AI to analyze data to identify and remediate traffic collision hot spots across the state, and the deployment of chatbots to assist both workers and citizens in finding information and resolving queries quickly.

While TxDOT’s framework for successful AI deployment and adoption contains familiar elements—like data governance, data accuracy, ethics and accountability—at the top of Selissen’s framework is infrastructure optimization. “One of the things we really don’t talk about with AI is [if] we have the capacity to handle the amount of data. Basically [do we have] the bandwidth available that the AI tool consumes,” she noted. “We’ve brought everybody up from broadband to a level that we can actually operate robust tools like AI in an effective manner, so we don’t have to wait hours or days but just minutes [for the results].”

Georgia: AI is the Economic Development Engine

For the State of Georgia, AI is helping drive economic growth and development across the state—not just in Atlanta. Josh Finke, Senior Vice President of Public Sector at Lumen, and Pete Bley, Director of Broadband and Tribal Business Development at Ciena, had a conversation with Richard Hicks, CEO of Inspiredu, where they discussed the many ways in which an AI-ready infrastructure is driving economic development in Georgia.

“The Governor of Georgia [Brian Kemp] is all in on AI because of the economic opportunities it brings to Georgia, such as Hyundai’s decision to build its new factory near Savannah, GA,” Hicks shared. This new plant—Hyundai’s first all-electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the United States—is a highly-connected, automated and flexible manufacturing system where all processes of production—order collection, procurement, logistics and production—are optimized utilizing AI and data.”

Not only does the plant need the AI-ready network infrastructure to move, analyze and apply data to drive manufacturing processes at speed and scale, but there’s a new demand for AI-ready workers. “90 percent of jobs today need digital skills,” explained Hicks. “Ensuring broadband connectivity is crucial for communities to access AI tools and skills, which are essential for participating in the AI economy.” To that end, and in support of the Governor’s vision, the Georgia Technology Authority is rolling out AI-ready high-speed broadband connectivity across the state so all Georgians have access to the education and training opportunities they need to be a part of this economic development engine.

But for networks that are managing AI workloads for manufacturing plants, schools, universities and government agencies using generative AI to improve citizen services, the ability to move data at speed isn’t the only factor that defines an AI-ready network. “Connecting every corner of our community isn’t just a nice to have; it’s really an essential,” Bley explained.  To connect communities, Bley emphasized that state governments need to build out the middle mile infrastructure to get the network out of cities and into rural communities. “An AI-ready network is built to handle high utilization and rapid capacity growth, but if it’s not supported by the right architecture, network devices can overheat and create performance issues. An AI-ready infrastructure is streamlined and needs less cooling than a traditional architecture enabling data to move more quickly than ever.”

Conclusion

As state governments continue to prioritize AI to support educational and economic development, improve public safety and citizen experiences—not to mention the myriad other possibilities we’ve yet to identify—building the foundation for success has never been more important. There are two distinct parts of success when it comes to integrating AI into workflows or for generating new insights. On one side of the AI success equation there’s the data, ethics, governance and use cases and on the other is the right network infrastructure to support data-rich workloads at speed and scale.

While it’s undoubtedly more exciting to spin up use cases, investing in network upgrades before deploying them is, in the end, a smarter choice. “Where we find the most success is when public sector institutions, including state governments at all levels, can partner not only with the federal government, but in addition, with commercial entities to ensure that connectivity is available for all,” added Josh Finke. Not only will an AI-ready network infrastructure help deliver success on today’s use cases, but it will enable, through the efficiencies achieved by successful deployment, more investments in AI and the expansion of use cases. That sounds like it’s worth taking a big bet on. Interested in hearing from government IT leaders as they prepare their organizations, team and constituencies for the AI era? We’re sharing their stories each week on The CIO Connection.

Explore insights on our Lumen Public Sector Solutions page—including our latest white paper, Building AI-Ready Networks: A Public Sector guide to Lumen^® Private Connectivity Fabric℠—for a closer look at the infrastructure, strategy and innovation behind our Lumen PCF and how it’s integral to infrastructure modernization.

This content is provided for informational purposes only and may require additional research and substantiation by the end user. In addition, the information is provided “as is” without any warranty or condition of any kind, either express or implied. Use of this information is at the end user’s own risk. Lumen does not warrant that the information will meet the end user’s requirements or that the implementation or usage of this information will result in the desired outcome of the end user. All third-party company and product or service names referenced in this article are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsement or affiliation with Lumen. This document represents Lumen products and offerings as of the date of issue. Services not available everywhere. Lumen may change or cancel products and services or substitute similar products and services at its sole discretion without notice. ©2025 Lumen Technologies. All Rights Reserved.