Kyndryl has opened its first U.S. AI Innovation Lab in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, with an investment the company expects to create as many as 300 highly skilled jobs over the next four years. Announced on October 1, 2026, the facility will help customers develop AI prototypes and plan how to put them into production.
The jobs will span AI, technology consulting and design engineering. Although Kyndryl calls the facility the AI Innovation Lab in Dallas, it is located in Frisco, according to a statement from Frisco Mayor Mark Hill included in the announcement.
Hill said the company could have selected any market in the United States and described its choice as reflecting Frisco’s reputation for growth, innovation and talent.
From experiments to working prototypes
The lab brings customers together with Kyndryl specialists for workshops, rapid prototyping and engineering co-creation. Its work centres on modernising technology environments to support AI.
The future of AI will be built through collaboration, and our AI Innovation Lab in Dallas brings customers together with Kyndryl experts to unlock the full value of AI while strengthening America’s innovation ecosystem
, Jamie Rutledge, President of Kyndryl U.S., said in the announcement.
Rutledge said the facility combines the Kyndryl Agentic AI Framework with the company’s consulting, engineering and infrastructure expertise to give customers a hands-on setting for experimentation.
Kyndryl’s latest modernisation research found that 34% of organisations are modernising to enable AI capabilities, compared with 29% citing cost reduction. The research also found that AI is increasing demand across cloud, mainframe, network and edge environments.
The lab uses four phases - customer immersion, co-design, build and roadmap - drawing on Kyndryl Consult, the company’s AI services and engineering expertise, and the design-led transformation practice of Kyndryl Vital.
According to Kyndryl’s AI Innovation Labs programme page, engagements take the form of structured two-day sessions. Customers explore workflows, agentic operating models and human-to-agent interactions before building prototypes, sample agents and redesigned workflows in a low-risk environment.
Kyndryl said participants can move from exploratory use cases to working prototypes in days, leaving with a roadmap that connects the prototype to production and prioritises next steps.
Sessions are staffed by a Forward Deployed Squad comprising Human Systems Architects, who design how people and AI agents work together; Forward Deployed Engineers, who build prototypes; and industry experts. Listed use cases include customer onboarding, fraud detection, contract management, claims handling and irregular operations recovery.
Local skills and public-sector work
Alongside its customer projects, Kyndryl is working with NPower, Dallas AI, Tech Titans and other local organisations to broaden access to AI and emerging technology skills and create career pathways in the region.
As an inaugural supporter of NPower’s AI training programme, the company is helping learners develop practical skills in prompt engineering and automation.
The Frisco facility will also house a specialised team working on Kyndryl’s DMV solutions for motor vehicle agencies across the United States. That team will develop reusable code and deployment best practices, use AI in solution development and testing, and demonstrate the company’s DMV capabilities to customers.
The lab will showcase Kyndryl’s Cyber Defense Operations Center capability, which combines network and security operations with AI-enabled insights and automation for monitoring, visibility and collaborative analysis. Experts at the facility will also help customers modernise and secure IT operations and infrastructure to use Frontier AI models.
Joining a global network
The Dallas facility joins Kyndryl’s lab network in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. Its programme page lists labs open in Dallas, Liverpool and Luxembourg.
The Liverpool lab opened on May 1, 2025, at the Royal Liver Building, with AI and software engineering specialists and degree apprentices. Kyndryl set a goal of expanding that team to as many as 1,000 software engineering and AI-related roles within three years.
That site provides advisory and co-creation services led by Kyndryl Consult and includes a Kyndryl Vital Studio. Its opening coincided with an expanded multiyear agreement with The Very Group, the Liverpool-based operator of the Very and Littlewoods digital retail brands.