AI Education Grants

Expanding K-12 Resources for AI Education Dear Colleague Letter Supplemental Funding to Scale Established AI Education Activities is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for STEM Education (EDU). This program invites current NSF awardees with K-12 AI or computer science education experience to request supplemental funding to refine, scale, evaluate, and/or implement established K-12 AI education activities.

Humanity AI Open Call for Grants is sponsored by Humanity AI (a collaborative initiative of multiple foundations including Doris Duke Foundation, Ford Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Kapor Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Omidyar Network, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Siegel Family Endowment). This open call invites U. S. -based nonprofit organizations to apply for funding that supports communities' collective power to shape how AI is built, governed, and used.

U.S. National Science Foundation State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP). This program supports the expansion of advanced computing and AI infrastructure through regional partnerships, providing researchers with broader access to resources to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation, and developing a skilled AI workforce.

NSF TechAccess: AI-Ready America (AI-Ready Coordination Hubs) is sponsored by U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This initiative aims to expand access to AI knowledge, tools, training, and capacity building to enable all Americans to participate in and benefit from the AI economy. It focuses on expanding AI literacy and applied skills across the American workforce, equipping small businesses and local governments with AI adoption tools and technical assistance, and building hands-on learning pathways. The program establishes AI-ready Coordination Hubs in every U.S. state and territory.

NSF 26-513 establishes State and Regional AI Infrastructure Hubs to widen access to AI compute for scientific discovery, with approximately 100,000,000 dollars available and about 10 awards anticipated per cycle at 4,000,000 to 12,000,000 dollars each over five years. A hub coordinates a state or multi-state consortium and funds three things that are usually unfunded in AI infrastructure efforts: AI infrastructure professionals such as systems administrators, engineers and cybersecurity specialists; AI-for-science facilitators who advise domain researchers on how to actually use AI methods; and faculty training plus instructional material development. It also funds workforce development offering stackable credentials in data engineering, research software engineering and GPU programming. The structural signal in this solicitation is that NSF has concluded the bottleneck in AI-enabled research is human rather than hardware, and is paying for the expertise layer between a researcher and a cluster. The restriction of one award per state or multi-state region makes this a coordination instrument rather than an open competition: institutions within a region are expected to consolidate into a single proposal, which means partnership-building should begin well before the submission window. Deadlines recur on the first Wednesday in November annually, with the current deadline 4 November 2026 followed by 3 November 2027.

U.S. National Science Foundation State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs: is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF State and Regional AI Infrastructure Hubs program aims to expand access to the compute required for AI-enabled scientific discovery and to transform the research, education, and training opportunities offered by institutions of higher education. AI Infrastructure Hubs will connect researchers to new compute infrastructure that leverages contributions from state governments, research institutions, industry, and philanthropy, accelerating AI-enabled discovery across science and engineering and developing a skilled technical workforce for AI use in the scientific enterprise.  The program responds to a core tenet of  Science: A New Golden Age  to renew America’s research and development (R&D) for changes in today’s scientific enterprise, including the role of AI in laying the foundation for a new era of scientific discovery and the growing role of industry and philanthropy in funding R&D. In response, the Administration’s  FY28 R&D Priorities Memorandum  called for investing in AI for science as a national mission and expanding the scale of, and flexible access to, advanced compute and data infrastructure that researchers now require for frontier scientific discovery. Each AI Infrastructure Hub will be organized as a flexible state or regional consortium of state and local governments, research institutions, philanthropies, and the private sector. Consortia will be responsible for all funding for new or expanded computing, data, and AI resources, whether on-premises or cloud-based. NSF will fund each Hub’s consortium coordination, AI infrastructure workforce development, and faculty training and coursework development in leveraging AI for science.      U.S. National Science Foundation State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs:. Program guideline: NSF 26-513. Upcoming due date listed in NSF feed.

U.S. National Science Foundation State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs is sponsored by NSF - Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). Supports the expansion of advanced computing and AI infrastructure through regional partnerships, giving researchers broader access to the resources needed to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation while developing a skilled AI workforce.

The NSF State and Regional AI Infrastructure Hubs program aims to expand access to the compute required for AI-enabled scientific discovery and to transform the research, education, and training opportunities offered by institutions of higher education. AI Infrastructure Hubs will connect researchers to new compute infrastructure that leverages contributions from state governments, research institutions, industry, and philanthropy, accelerating AI-enabled discovery across science and engineering and developing a skilled technical workforce for AI use in the scientific enterprise. The program responds to a core tenet of Science: A New Golden Age to renew America’s research and development (R&D) for changes in today’s scientific enterprise, including the role of AI in laying the foundation for a new era of scientific discovery and the growing role of industry and philanthropy in funding R&D. In response, the Administration’s FY28 R&D Priorities Memorandum called for investing in AI for science as a national mission and expanding the scale of, and flexible access to, advanced compute and data infrastructure that researchers now require for frontier scientific discovery. Each AI Infrastructure Hub will be organized as a flexible state or regional consortium of state and local governments, research institutions, philanthropies, and the private sector. Consortia will be responsible for all funding for new or expanded computing, data, and AI resources, whether on-premises or cloud-based. NSF will fund each Hub’s consortium coordination, AI infrastructure workforce development, and faculty training and coursework development in leveraging AI for science. Funding Opportunity Number: 26-513. Assistance Listing: 47.076,47.084. Funding Instrument: CA. Category: ST. Award Amount: $100M total program funding.

Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services (2027) is sponsored by Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). This program supports Native American Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and organizations that primarily serve and represent Native Hawaiians in sustaining heritage, culture, and knowledge. Projects can include educational services and programs, workforce professional development, organizational capacity building, community engagement, and collections stewardship. While not directly focused on AI literacy, digital literacy and technology skills can be integrated into educational and workforce development aspects.

NSF TechAccess AI-Ready America is a major new initiative to establish AI-ready Coordination Hubs in every U.S. state and territory to expand access to AI knowledge tools training and capacity building. Announced March 25 2026 the initiative is a joint effort of NSF USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Department of Labor and Small Business Administration (SBA). Each Hub will connect local partners and coordinate AI deployment scale proven approaches based on state and local priorities and address three key gaps: workforce AI literacy small business and local government AI adoption and hands-on learning pathways. Up to 56 Hubs will be funded at up to $1 million per year for three years selected through three rounds of competition. An informational webinar is scheduled for April 14 2026. This is distinct from NSF ExpandAI which focuses on institutional AI research capacity building and from NSF Expanding AI Career which targets skilled technical workforce opportunities.

TechAccess: AI-Ready America is sponsored by NSF (National Science Foundation). This program aims to expand access to AI knowledge, tools, training, and capacity building for all Americans, including youth, so they can participate in and benefit from emerging AI opportunities. It focuses on strengthening coordination around AI readiness, leveraging existing networks, and addressing gaps to advance AI readiness. The program aligns with priorities around promoting AI literacy and integrating AI into education.

The AFRI Education and Workforce Development (AFRI-EWD) program funds projects that develop the next generation of agricultural professionals across K-14 education through postdoctoral fellowships, including training in agricultural data science, digital and precision agriculture, and AI-enabled food and agricultural systems. The FY 2026 program makes approximately $39.7 million available, with individual awards from $10,000 to $650,000 depending on project type (professional development, research and extension experiences for undergraduates, predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, and institutional capacity building). The opportunity was posted January 20, 2026 and closes December 31, 2026. Matching funds are required for some project types, and eligibility varies by project type.

NSF 25-545 is the Directorate for STEM Education's consolidated K-12 research program, and its distinguishing feature for 2026 is that artificial intelligence has been written into the core framing rather than bolted on. The solicitation states that the program seeks proposals that explore how AI and other emerging technologies can be effectively leveraged to study and enhance STEM teaching and learning, and it references Executive Order 14277 on advancing AI education for American youth, with an emphasis on preparing citizens for a digital society through early learning and exposure to AI. In practice this opens two distinct lanes: AI as an object of study, meaning AI literacy curricula, computational thinking and how students reason about machine systems; and AI as an instrument, meaning intelligent tutoring, adaptive assessment, automated feedback, teacher-facing analytics and AI-supported professional development. Both are in scope, and the strongest proposals tend to be explicit about which one they are doing. Proposals may address learning or instruction in any STEM field and may operate in formal pre-K through 12 settings or in informal learning environments, which makes museums, after-school programs and out-of-school providers legitimate leads rather than junior partners. The structural advantage here is the submission model: proposals are accepted anytime on a rolling basis rather than against a hard annual deadline, which removes the usual scramble and lets a team submit when the partnership and pilot data are actually ready. Eligibility is broad, covering two- and four-year institutions of higher education including community colleges, non-profit non-academic organizations, for-profit U.S.-based organizations, state and local governments, and federally recognized Tribal Nations, with no limit on the number of proposals per organization or on PI participation.

The Rural AI Catalyst Fund is a 5,500,000 US dollar pooled fund managed by TechSoup and launched with an anchor investment from Google to build AI capability in rural American communities, making grants of either 250,000 or 500,000 dollars. Its three stated objectives are to scale AI literacy and vocational pathways for workers and underemployed individuals; to strengthen the local sectors rural economies actually run on, namely agriculture, healthcare, education and small business; and to build long-term community resilience through technical training that enables organisations to treat data as a public good. The initial geography is deliberately narrow, focused on Georgia, Nebraska and Texas with further states to be determined, and indigenous communities are named explicitly. Governance runs through a Community Advisory Council whose membership, including the Aspen Institute, the Center on Rural Innovation, CoBank, Communities Unlimited, Future Farmers of America, Partners for Rural Transformation and Partners for Rural Impact, signals that the fund is oriented toward established rural intermediaries and cooperative networks rather than toward technology startups. A Data and Technology Hub operated as a partnership between TechSoup and the Ballmer Group provides service-provider support. The first round closed 8 September 2026 and TechSoup has signalled further cycles and additional contributors, so prospective applicants should register interest now through their local TechSoup programme.

AI in Education Grants (2026–2027) - Option 1: Pilot & Assess AI Projects is sponsored by STEMx. This special call supports CNS faculty and staff to explore, assess, and share effective uses of AI in undergraduate teaching and learning. Option 1 is for faculty testing a new AI-related teaching idea, with the goal of helping students develop AI literacy and fluency.

TechAccess: AI-Ready America, NSF solicitation 26-508, is a national program to coordinate AI readiness and accelerate AI deployment across every US state and territory. Total program funding is 168,000,000 to 224,000,000 US dollars, with up to 56 State or Territory Coordination Hub awards of up to 1,000,000 dollars per year for three years, one per state, the District of Columbia or territory, awarded across three rounds. Round 1 letters of intent were due 16 June 2026 with full proposals 16 July 2026; additional rounds follow in December 2026 and June 2027, with reported full-proposal dates of 15 January 2027 and 1 July 2027. The program has three components: the state and territory hubs, a National Coordination Lead issued as a separate Other Transaction Award, and AI-Ready Catalyst Award competitions to be announced later. Substantively the hubs are charged with addressing AI literacy, workforce development, business adoption of AI, and public service innovation, by building statewide coordination mechanisms, training infrastructure, hands-on deployment support, and sector-specific collaboration across education, workforce, industry and government stakeholders. This is one of the largest AI education and workforce programs NSF has launched, and its structure is distinctive: because only one hub is funded per jurisdiction, the competition is effectively a state-by-state contest to assemble the most credible cross-sector coalition rather than a national competition on research merit. For universities, state systems, community college consortia and nonprofits positioned to convene a whole state, it is a strategically important opportunity, and in states not yet awarded, the remaining rounds are the only entry point.

TechAccess: AI-Ready America (NSF 26-508) is a landmark national-scale initiative to accelerate AI readiness and adoption across the United States by establishing State/Territory Coordination Hubs. Each hub receives up to $1 million annually for three years (with a possible one-year extension) to serve as a central resource for AI education, workforce development, and technology deployment within their state or territory. Hubs are responsible for maintaining an AI Learning and Resource Navigator, strategic planning and evaluation for AI readiness, hands-on AI deployment support for businesses and government, training coordination across K-16 and workforce systems, and priority sector coordination in energy, agriculture, healthcare, and manufacturing. The program operates in three rounds: Round 1 selects 10 hubs (July 2026), Round 2 selects 20 hubs (January 2027), and Round 3 fills remaining slots (July 2027). This represents one of the largest federal investments in AI workforce readiness, aiming to ensure every state has coordinated AI adoption infrastructure.

TechAccess: AI-Ready America (NSF 26-508) is a national coordination program designed to make every U.S. state and territory capable of absorbing and deploying artificial intelligence, rather than to fund AI research itself. That distinction matters enormously for positioning: this is deployment, coordination, and workforce infrastructure money, not a basic research grant. NSF anticipates making 56 State/Territory Coordination Hub awards - one per state, DC, and each U.S. territory - at roughly $1,000,000 per year for three years, with a possible fourth year, against a total program envelope of $168,000,000 to $224,000,000. A Hub acts as the convening entity for its state: it builds an accessible inventory of AI training programs and resources, develops a statewide AI readiness strategic plan with real performance metrics, provides hands-on deployment assistance to businesses and government entities, coordinates education and workforce training across K-16 and career and technical systems, facilitates sector-specific collaboration in the state's priority industries, and establishes a deployment corps of credentialed AI practitioners. Two further components sit alongside the Hubs - a National Coordination Lead providing strategic oversight across the network, and Catalyst Award Competitions that fund innovative pilots. The program is run in collaboration with the Department of Labor, USDA NIFA, and the Small Business Administration, which signals that proposals connecting AI readiness to labor markets, agriculture, and small business adoption will land well. Because only one Hub is expected per state or territory, the practical competition is intra-state: prospective applicants should be building a statewide coalition rather than a single-institution proposal. Letters of Intent are required and precede full proposals by one month. Round 1 closed in July 2026; Round 2 has a Letter of Intent deadline of 15 December 2026 and a full proposal deadline of 15 January 2027, with Round 3 following at 1 June 2027 and 1 July 2027.

HORIZON-CL6-2027-03-GOVERNANCE-04 funds AI-based advisory tools for farmers and foresters, and the Commission's framing is deliberately unforgiving: the tools must be ready for deployment and proven to work better than currently available versions. This is an Innovation Action requiring technology readiness level 8 by project completion, not a research topic, and proposals built around novel method development rather than validated deployment will not fit. The technical scope named in the topic reads as a specification for a modern agricultural advisory system: integration of multiple data sources including public databases, in-situ data and private sources; multimodal input processing across text, images, audio and video; retrieval-augmented generation methodologies; and privacy protection techniques to handle commercially sensitive farm data. Alongside the technology, the topic mandates co-development with end users across diverse European farming systems, publication of curated, interoperable and FAIR-compliant datasets, and substantive social sciences and humanities contributions covering legal, gender and behavioural expertise. Expected outcomes are improved farm and forest management decisions, enhanced user AI literacy and advisory solutions validated in the field by advisors, farmers and foresters across Europe. The multi-actor approach is a mandatory eligibility criterion and proposals that do not demonstrate it are ineligible rather than merely weaker. Two projects are expected from an indicative budget of 11.80 million euros. The topic opens 4 February 2027 with a single-stage deadline of 11 May 2027 at 17:00 Brussels time.

Virginia has established the AIS Innovation in Education Pilot Program in statute at Code of Virginia Section 22.1-20.2:1, directing the Department of Education to fund, evaluate and scale safe and innovative uses of artificial intelligence systems in public elementary and secondary schools. The programme supports school divisions piloting AI applications across five named uses: instruction, tutoring, student engagement, operational efficiency and teacher support. Two statutory requirements give the programme more analytical weight than a typical technology pilot fund. Every selected division must include professional development for educators on AI literacy and responsible use, and every division must develop and submit an evaluation plan measuring the impact of AI use on student learning, teacher workload and equity outcomes. The explicit inclusion of teacher workload as a measured outcome is notable, since it treats staff time as a primary rather than incidental effect of classroom AI. The Department is directed to prioritise proposals from divisions serving diverse student populations, including high-poverty, rural and under-resourced divisions. The programme is supported by 2,000,000 dollars in the FY2027 to FY2028 budget and expires 1 July 2030, giving it a defined four-cycle life. School divisions or consortia apply competitively by 1 August each year, with annual reports required to legislative committees.

Truist Foundation Grants for Georgia Workforce is sponsored by Truist Foundation. Truist Foundation provides funding to eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations in Georgia and other Truist footprint states that offer workforce preparation and job readiness services. This includes support for adult career pathways, economic mobility, innovative training, upskilling, AI literacy, career navigation, and wraparound support programs for workers. The foundation focuses on building career pathways to economic mobility and strengthening small businesses.

NSF 25-545 STEM K-12 is a new $30 million program supporting innovative, multidisciplinary research and development that builds theory and informs education practice in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, with a specific emphasis on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. The program supports fundamental, applied, and translational research that enhances STEM teaching and learning across formal and informal K-12 settings, including how AI and other emerging technologies can be effectively leveraged to study and enhance STEM teaching and learning. Released in September 2025 as part of the coordinated federal response to Executive Order 14277 on advancing AI education for American youth, the program accepts proposals on a rolling basis with no fixed deadline. Strong fit for education researchers, learning scientists, AI/HCI researchers, and PreK-12 education developers exploring AI tutoring, intelligent tutoring systems, AI-augmented assessments, AI literacy curricula, and AI for STEM teacher preparation.

Grants for Research Regarding Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences is sponsored by The Foundation (specific name not provided in snippet, but a private foundation context is implied). This grant from a private foundation supports research in cognitive and behavioral sciences. While broad, projects focusing on the cognitive aspects of AI literacy, how students learn AI concepts, or behavioral impacts of AI in education could be relevant.

Rural and Indigenous Community Catalyst Program is sponsored by AI Education Project (aiEDU) with funding from companies like Google. This grant initiative by aiEDU aims to improve AI literacy and workforce readiness in rural and Indigenous communities across the U.S. It distributes project-based grants to underserved communities, including local nonprofits and tribal education departments, to support efforts like integrating AI into after-school programs or developing AI lesson plans in Native languages.

AI for Altruism Grant Programs (Professional Development Grants, Infrastructure Grants, Student Engagement Funding) is sponsored by AI for Altruism (A4A). AI for Altruism offers grants for professional development (funding for teachers to master AI), infrastructure (support for schools and nonprofits to acquire AI tools and improve technology access), and student engagement (sponsorships for competitions, workshops, and AI learning initiatives). They promote access to AI resources in underserved communities.

Alabama Commission on Higher Education AI Microcredential Grant is a grant from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE) that funds development of artificial intelligence microcredential programs at Alabama colleges and universities. The grant supports institutions in designing and launching short-term, stackable AI credentials that prepare students and workers for AI-enabled careers. Eligible applicants are accredited Alabama public and private postsecondary institutions. Funded activities include curriculum development, faculty training, equipment purchases, and partnership development with industry employers seeking AI-skilled workers.

Community Grants (Workforce Readiness - Digital Literacy) is sponsored by Alliant Energy and the Alliant Energy Foundation. Alliant Energy's Community Grants support workforce readiness programs, including those focused on financial and digital literacy, STEM programming, and career exploration and job training. Digital literacy can serve as an entry point for AI literacy initiatives.

Corporate Support Opportunities is sponsored by American Academy of Artificial Intelligence in Dentistry (AAAI-D). The American Academy of Artificial Intelligence in Dentistry (AAAI-D) offers partnership pathways for companies to support public literacy in dental AI, educational resources for clinicians, student and faculty mentorship, and ethics, transparency, and responsible technology use.

AI Working Group Initiatives (California Department of Education) is sponsored by California Department of Education. The California Department of Education has convened an AI Working Group to develop guidance and model policy for the safe, equitable, and effective use of AI in schools. While not a direct grant program for small businesses, this initiative indicates a growing state interest in AI education technology and could lead to future funding opportunities or partnerships for small businesses in this sector.