AI Compute Access Fund is sponsored by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). The AI Compute Access Fund is a national initiative to help Canadian innovators and businesses (SMEs) access high-performance computing resources. It aims to accelerate the development and deployment of made-in-Canada AI solutions by offsetting the high cost of compute resources, particularly in sectors requiring significant computing capacity like life sciences, energy, and advanced manufacturing.

Foundations for Digital Twins as Catalyzers of Biomedical Technological Innovation (NSF FDT-BioTech) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), Division of Mathematical Sciences, and Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. This program supports interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, computational modeling, and biomedical innovation, funding mathematical and engineering foundations for digital twins and synthetic data in healthcare.

The NSF FDT-BioTech program (NSF 24-561) supports interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, computational modeling, and biomedical innovation by funding the mathematical and engineering foundations behind digital twins and synthetic data for healthcare applications. Digital twins — computational replicas of biological systems, patients, or medical devices — require advanced AI and machine learning methods for their development, calibration, and deployment. The program funds research on methods and algorithms relevant to digital twins and synthetic humans, including AI-driven in silico evaluation of medical devices and treatments. Projects must be inherently interdisciplinary, combining expertise in mathematics, engineering, computer science, and biomedical domains. Collaborative projects across multiple organizations are encouraged and can receive up to $1 million in total funding over up to 3 years. The program is administered by multiple NSF directorates including the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, reflecting its cross-cutting nature. The deadline recurs annually on the first Monday in May.

National Science Foundation Translation to Practice (NSF TTP) is sponsored by U.S. National Science Foundation, Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP). This program supports interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, computational modeling, and biomedical innovation, funding the mathematical and engineering foundations behind digital twins and synthetic data for healthcare applications.

AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program (SCIP) is sponsored by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. The AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program (SCIP) is a major initiative under the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy. It aims to vastly increase AI-relevant compute power for Canadian researchers and industrial R&D by building state-of-the-art AI supercomputing infrastructure. The program focuses on enhancing Canadian sovereignty and resiliency in AI by supporting the design, construction, and ongoing operation of a compute system that ensures data residency, operational control, and decision-making authority remain in Canada.

The AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program (AISCIP) supports the design, construction, and operation of a national public AI supercomputing system in Canada. With approximately CAD $890 million allocated over seven fiscal years starting FY2026-27, this initiative is a core pillar of Canada's broader Sovereign AI Compute Strategy. The program funds hardware installation, data centre operations, and systems administration for high-performance AI-optimized compute infrastructure with Canadian data residency requirements. Successful applicants must demonstrate rapid deployment capability, scalable design, Canadian governance with data residency control, and broader economic benefits including domestic supply chain strengthening. This is distinct from the separately-funded AI Compute Access Fund, which subsidizes researcher access to existing compute resources. An informational webinar is available for prospective applicants.

Enhancing the Security, Privacy and Robustness of AI Models and Systems (SecureAI) is sponsored by European Commission — Horizon Europe. Expected Outcome: Proposals are expected to contribute to one or more of the following: Robust AI models and systems capable of resisting different classes of adversarial manipulation; Innovative defence mechanisms for AI models and systems against new attack families; Methodologies for detecting and mitigating attacks, such as data poisoning, backdoor exploitation and misclassification; AI systems leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies that maintain data confidentiality and regulatory compliance, enabling trusted in-house AI deployments (e.g., for governments and enterprises). Scope: The increasing reliance on AI in cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, and decision-making processes raises concerns about the security and robustness of AI systems. As AI systems become more prevalent, they are increasingly targeted by adversarial attacks that manipulate inputs, compromise training data, or introduce hidden vulnerabilities. This topic aims to strengthen the resilience of AI systems and algorithms against various threats and attacks, such as enhancing their resilience against adversarial attacks, backdoor injections, and data poisoning. Proposals should develop real-time anomaly detection, mitigation techniques to defend against adversarial attacks and robust federated learning techniques, in synergies with leading efforts on AI transparency, and in compliance with the AI Act. The topic is expected to: Develop robust AI models resistant to adversarial attacks. Exploring techniques to harden AI models and systems against adversarial perturbations, such as adversarial training, robust optimisation, and defence mechanisms that enhance the trustworthiness of AI. Improve detection of manipulated or poisoned training data. Advancing methodologies to identify and mitigate compromised datasets, leveraging techniques such as anomaly detection, provenance tracking, and automated data validation mechanisms. Address the concept of Private AI by developing mechanisms that enable AI models to be trained, deployed and operated in privacy-preserving environments, particularly for sensitive use cases, as for example for government and enterprise settings. This includes ensuring AI computations and data remain within trusted execution boundaries (e.g. on-premise or regulated cloud environments), and leveraging existing and emerging privacy-enhancing techniques such as federated learning, secure aggregation, computing on encrypted data, quantum-safe homomorphic encryption and secure inference in deep learning to safeguard the protection of personal and other sensitive data throughout the AI lifecycle. Programme areas: Horizon Europe (HORIZON), Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, Civil Security for Society, Cybersecurity Keywords: Artificial Intelligence & Decision support, Artificial intelligence, Artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, multi agent systems, Cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Domains, Data Security and Privacy, Security Management and Governance, Security support in programming environments, AI Act, AI transparency, Private AI, adversarial training, adversarial attacks, anomaly detection, automated data validation, federated learning techniques, privacy-preserving environment, provenance tracking, quantum-safe homomorphic encryption, real-time anomaly detection, resilience of AI systems, secure aggregation, security and robustness of AI systems

The 2026 ERDC Broad Agency Announcement (W912HZ26S0001) solicits research proposals across a broad range of engineering and scientific disciplines with significant AI and computational focus areas. Issued January 2, 2026, the BAA covers research in AI, computer science, remote sensing, geophysics, telecommunications, hydraulics, dredging, coastal engineering, instrumentation, oceanography, geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, vehicle mobility, military engineering, protective structures, infrastructure and environmental issues, energy, facilities maintenance, materials and structures, and ecological processes. ERDC seeks proposals applying machine learning, computer vision, autonomous systems, and AI-driven modeling to advance Army engineering capabilities across both military and civil works applications.

2025 Seed Grant for AI & Energy is a grant from the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and the Block Center for Technology and Society at Carnegie Mellon University that funds energy and climate research projects. The program has supported research since 2012 and expanded in 2025 to include a joint seed grant with the Carnegie Bosch Institute focused on evaluating household smart and flexible energy technologies and their contribution to power grid stability and efficiency. Recipients are expected to apply for larger externally funded projects after the initial seed period. Awards range from $10,000 to $75,000. Eligible applicants must be CMU faculty who are Scott Institute Faculty Affiliates; co-sponsored funding requires CBI Faculty Host status.

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada's Accelerated AI Investments program deploys up to $40 million in the 2025-2026 fiscal year to provide dedicated AI compute resources for Canadian researchers. The initiative makes GPU clusters including NVIDIA H100 and A100 hardware available through national HPC facilities including Narval, Cedar, Graham, and Niagara. Resources support AI model training, large language model fine-tuning, computer vision research, and other compute-intensive AI workloads. The program is part of Canada's broader Pan-Canadian AI Strategy which has invested over $2 billion since its launch. Allocations are processed through the Alliance's Resource Allocation Competition (RAC) and Rapid Access Service (RAS) pathways.

Artificial Intelligence Grant – NSF SBIR/STTR is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). The Artificial Intelligence Grant – NSF SBIR/STTR program funds startups and small businesses to create artificial intelligence technology. Focus areas include cutting-edge hardware technologies for sustainable AI, edge devices, and AI technologies that lead to better hardware systems. Proposals focused on developing new high-risk technical innovation with significant commercial and societal impact are welcome. This includes areas like cognitive science-based AI, computer vision, conversational AI, language-based AI, novel AI hardware technologies, sustainable AI for low-resource environments, and technologies for trustworthy AI.

The Artificial Intelligence Compute Resources (AICR) environment is a grant from the Massachusetts AI Hub and Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) that funds access to high-performance AI computing infrastructure at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke. Backed by a $31 million state grant as the first phase of a planned $120 million public-private investment, the AICR provides sustainable compute capacity for AI research and deployment. At least 40% of compute time is reserved for startups, entrepreneurs, and partner institutions including non-member colleges and nonprofits statewide. Eligible beneficiaries include Massachusetts-based startups, researchers, and academic institutions. The initiative supports AI innovation while leveraging MGHPCC's energy-efficient infrastructure.

The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot (NAIRR) is a program from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that funds the creation of an operations center to manage and expand the National AI Research Resource. It provides U.S. researchers and educators with sustained access to advanced AI tools, data, and expertise to support innovation, workforce development, and national competitiveness in artificial intelligence. The program prioritizes research on AI safety, evaluations, and societal impacts, and may provide up to $1,000,000 in compute credits for qualifying AI safety research. Eligible applicants include U.S. researchers, educators, and institutions seeking access to cutting-edge AI computing infrastructure and resources.

AI on the edge for a secure and autonomous distribution grid control with a high share of renewable energies – AI4DG is sponsored by ANR (French National Research Agency). Develops a distributed AI on the edge platform for autonomous and secure battery storage control in low voltage grids with high renewable energy integration.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs (Army) is sponsored by Department of the Army -- Materiel Command. The Army SBIR|STTR Program aligns innovative small businesses with critical U.S. Army priorities, including Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning technologies such as synthetic data generation, automated detection and prevention, biometrics, natural language technology, explainable AI, computer vision, and cyber defense. It supports the development of game-changing solutions for the U.S. Army.

Qualcomm Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2026, sponsored by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., is a competitive innovation program for technology startups in Vietnam working on smart cities, IoT, robotics, AgriTech, AI-powered systems, and related fields. The program connects high-potential Vietnamese startups with Qualcomm's technology platforms, resources, and global network to commercialize and scale their solutions. Past winners have developed AI-driven safety monitoring systems and automation solutions for manufacturing deployed on Qualcomm edge AI platforms. Eligible applicants are Vietnam-based startups specializing in relevant technology sectors. Specific award amounts are not publicly disclosed.

Canada AI Compute Access Fund is a grant from Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada that funds small and medium-sized Canadian businesses accessing cloud-based AI compute resources to scale and commercialize innovative AI projects. The fund covers two-thirds of eligible costs for Canadian cloud-based compute and half of eligible costs for non-Canadian compute services. Individual project awards range from $100,000 to $5,000,000 in compute costs, from a total fund of up to $300 million. Eligible applicants are Canadian-registered, for-profit companies with fewer than 500 full-time employees engaged in AI research and development with a clear commercialization pathway.

National Artificial Intelligence Initiative (NAII) is sponsored by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This grant funds fundamental and applied research to advance trustworthy artificial intelligence systems, supporting the development of tools to measure AI capabilities and limitations, technical requirements for accurate, reliable, safe, secure, explainable, and bias-free AI, and exploration of future AI computing paradigms.

Foundations for Digital Twins as Catalyzers of Biomedical Technological Innovation (NSF FDT-BioTech) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). This program supports interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, computational modeling, and biomedical innovation. It funds the mathematical and engineering foundations behind digital twins and synthetic data for healthcare applications. Research on methods and algorithms relevant to digital twins and synthetic humans, including AI-driven in silico evaluation, is encouraged.

AI Compute Access Fund is sponsored by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. This fund supports the purchase of AI compute resources by Canadian innovators and businesses. The program aims to address the high cost and limited availability of domestic compute capacity, particularly in sectors requiring high-performance computing for AI adoption, such as life sciences, energy, and advanced manufacturing.

NAIRR Pilot (National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot) is sponsored by U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with 13 federal agencies and 28 industry partners. The NAIRR Pilot was created to democratize access to AI compute, datasets, and pre-trained models. It aggregates resources from contributors including Microsoft and NVIDIA. It is currently transitioning from the pilot phase to a permanent operations center.

U.S.-Qatar Strategic Partnership Initiative: Economic, Technology, and Security Cooperation (Freedom 250 Commemorative) is sponsored by U.S. Department of State, Embassy Doha. This funding opportunity supports projects that strengthen U.S.–Qatar strategic relations and advance U.S. economic and technological leadership, particularly in AI, energy, advanced manufacturing, and critical infrastructure. It seeks to expand opportunities for U.S. exports, investment, and commercial partnerships.

National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). The NAIRR Pilot provides U.S.-based researchers with access to advanced computing platforms, datasets, models, and software contributed by NSF, the Department of Energy, and private-sector partners. It is designed for researchers who need AI compute resources rather than a multi-year consortium grant.

Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program is a grant from the Spencer Foundation — in collaboration with the Kapor Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation — that provides emergency bridge funding to researchers whose federal education research grants have been recently cancelled or terminated. The program specifically targets scholars whose National Science Foundation (NSF) grants have been abruptly ended. Awards of up to $25,000 support immediate needs following cancellation, including completing a wave of data collection, analyzing existing data, writing, thoughtful project closure with community partners, or preparing new grant proposals. To be eligible, scholars must be working on STEM and education research — including AI, computer science, graduate education, MSIs, or research reducing inequality — and must have had a recently cancelled NSF grant. Early-career scholars are prioritized where possible.

Microsoft Research's global academic research program providing Azure AI compute credits and access to cutting-edge foundation models for research advancing AI safety, human-AI interaction, and scientific discovery. The program operates through periodic Calls for Proposals, workshops, and conferences. Focus areas include AI safety and responsibility (robustness, transparency, evaluation methods), human-AI interaction (trust, creativity, productivity, reducing digital divides), and scientific discovery (knowledge discovery, hypothesis generation, multimodal data generation). The program is evolving into the Agentic AI Research and Innovation (AARI) initiative focusing on intelligent agent systems.

Part of Canada's Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, this fund provides financial support to Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises to access state-of-the-art computing infrastructure for AI model training and inference. The program covers cloud-based compute services including core compute, storage, licensing, processing, monitoring, and security requirements. Aims to ensure Canadian AI companies have affordable access to GPU compute power needed to develop competitive AI products and services.

The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot is a program from the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy that provides researchers with access to advanced AI computing infrastructure, software, data, models, and educational resources. NAIRR is a national-scale infrastructure designed to accelerate AI-powered scientific discovery, expand the AI workforce, and advance AI interpretability and security. Since its pilot launch in 2024, it has supported over 600 research projects and 6,000 students across all 50 states. Resources include supercomputer node hours and other computing allocations. Eligible applicants are scientists and researchers at academic institutions and other research organizations with computationally demanding AI research needs.

NSF FDT-BioTech Foundations for Digital Twins as Catalyzers of Biomedical Technological Innovation (NSF 24-561) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). This program supports interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, computational modeling, and biomedical innovation, funding the mathematical and engineering foundations behind digital twins and synthetic data for healthcare applications.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program is sponsored by Various Federal Agencies (e.g., DoD, NIH, NSF). The SBIR program provides grants to small businesses for research and development with the potential for commercialization. It's often called 'America's Seed Fund' and focuses on scientific excellence and technological innovation across various technology areas, including AI, energy, medical devices, robotics, and semiconductors.