Which US tech hubs are growing fastest and which are losing momentum?

ChatGPT

The U.S. tech map is splitting into two stories:

AI is strengthening the biggest established hubs (San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Washington, Boston).

Lower-cost, talent-rich metros are gaining share (Dallas, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Miami, parts of the Midwest).

CBRE

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There is no single “growth” metric—venture funding, startup formation, AI hiring, corporate relocations, and overall tech employment tell slightly different stories. But the broad picture looks like this:

Fastest-rising U.S. tech hubs

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1. Austin, Texas — still a major growth hub (but cooling)

Why it’s rising

Strong startup ecosystem

Major presence from Tesla, Oracle, Dell Technologies and many venture-backed firms

Deep software engineering pipeline from University of Texas at Austin

Business-friendly costs compared with coastal hubs

Headwinds

Housing affordability has deteriorated

Tech hiring has slowed after the pandemic boom

Office demand has softened

Austin remains a top-tier hub, but its “unstoppable growth” phase has moderated. CBRE still ranked Austin among the top U.S. tech talent markets.

CBRE

2. Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas — one of the strongest up-and-comers

Why it’s gaining

Corporate headquarters concentration

Strong cloud, cybersecurity, fintech, and telecom presence

Large engineering workforce

Data-center growth driven by AI infrastructure demand

Dallas has benefited from companies looking for scale without Bay Area costs. AI-related employment growth has also…

Trimmed here; the full answer is in the viewer.

Named: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Miami, Austin, Georgia Tech, Denver, Washington, D.C.

Sources cited: cbre.com

Claude

The picture right now actually depends on which data you're looking at — hiring volume growth vs. relative resilience in a contracting market. Here's both.

Momentum builders (emerging hubs)

Raleigh-Durham — Research Triangle universities (Duke, UNC, NC State) feeding steady growth in software, biotech analytics, and AI research.

Phoenix — Semiconductor and chip manufacturing (Intel's big fab), aerospace, and green tech; widely cited as one of the fastest-growing tech workforces through 2024-25, though a more recent September 2026 hiring snapshot shows it cooling.

Austin — Still one of the most reliable long-term markets; tech is now roughly 13% of the metro's total employment.

Nashville, Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas-Fort Worth — All showing 30-45% cost advantages over coastal hubs, pulling in companies and workers.

Smaller up-and-comers: Melbourne FL (Space Coast aerospace/defense), St. Louis, Boise, Columbia SC (cloud/DevOps roles up sharply), and Dayton OH (Wright-Patterson AFB corridor).

Losing ground

San Francisco Bay Area / San Jose — Brookings data shows digital activity is spreading out for the first time in over a decade, with San Francisco and San Jose sliding into the bottom 10 metros for share growth. That said, SF still pulls outsized AI/deep-tech funding, so it's "losing share" more than "losing relevance."

KORE1

Atlanta and Phoenix — In the most current (September 2026) hiring data, these two show the steepest pullback in job postings among major hubs.…

Trimmed here; the full answer is in the viewer.

Named: Raleigh-Durham, Phoenix, Austin, Nashville, Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, San Francisco Bay Area, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Houston, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Miami, New York City

Sources cited: kore1.com

Gemini

The U.S. technology landscape has shifted from a concentrated dominance in major coastal hubs toward secondary and regional markets. While legacy hubs remain massive talent centers, high living costs, corporate restructuring, and remote-work adjustments have shifted momentum away from traditional centers and toward sunbelt and mid-sized metros.

Foothold America

Fastest-Growing Tech Hubs

These metros are showing the highest rates of net tech job growth, startup formation, and corporate expansion:

KORE1

Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina: Anchored by the Research Triangle (Duke, UNC, NC State), Raleigh leads regional momentum with strong gains in biotech, AI, software engineering, and clean tech.

KORE1

Phoenix, Arizona: Driven by massive infrastructure investments—such as TSMC's multi-billion-dollar semiconductor facilities—Phoenix is rapidly expanding in hardware, microchips, and process software.

KORE1

Salt Lake City & Provo, Utah ("Silicon Slopes"): High concentration in SaaS, fintech, and enterprise software combined with lower operational costs relative to the West Coast.

KORE1

Nashville, Tennessee: Experiencing fast tech adoption, particularly in healthcare technology, clinical systems engineering, and music tech.

KORE1

Denver & Boulder, Colorado: Consistently expanding in aerospace, quantum computing, cloud infrastructure, and AI startups.

Huntsville, Alabama & San Antonio, Texas: Key emerging hubs driven heavily by aerospace, defense technology, and specialized…

Trimmed here; the full answer is in the viewer.

Named: Raleigh-Durham, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Nashville, Denver, Huntsville, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin

Sources cited: footholdamerica.com, kore1.com

Perplexity

The fastest-growing U.S. tech hubs are increasingly Sun Belt and interior metros—especially Dallas–Fort Worth, Raleigh–Durham, Nashville, South Florida, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City—while the Bay Area remains dominant in depth and AI but has lost relative employment-share momentum. New York is the major exception among legacy hubs: it has continued to add tech talent at scale and has recently surpassed the Bay Area in total tech-talent headcount.

cbre

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The fastest growers

There is no single definitive “growth” ranking: a metro can grow fastest by percentage, add the most total jobs, gain national share, or improve its overall talent-market ranking. Across those measures, the following places show the clearest momentum:

Hub Evidence of momentum What is driving it

Dallas–Fort Worth Added about 47,100 tech-talent jobs from 2021–24—second only to New York in CBRE’s comparison—and grew 26% over that period.

cbre

Large labor pool, corporate relocations, relatively lower costs, cloud/data-center infrastructure, semiconductors, fintech, and enterprise software

Raleigh–Durham Rose four places in CBRE’s 2025 ranking; it is among the markets that improved most, and Raleigh was also among metros with the highest tech-economic impact in CompTIA’s data.

comptia

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Research Triangle universities, life sciences, cloud/data, semiconductors, and a strong engineering pipeline

Nashville Tech-talent employment grew 29% from 2021–24, among the highest U.S. growth rates in CBRE’s…

Trimmed here; the full answer is in the viewer.

Named: Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville, Miami, Salt Lake City, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Columbus, Atlanta, Phoenix, Huntsville, Philadelphia, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, Boston, Washington, D.C.

Sources cited: cbre.com, cio.com, siteselection.com, brookings.edu