AI Energy Grants

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.

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

Cancer Research UK's Discovery Programme Award provides long-term support for established researchers to pursue ambitious and creative programmes of work addressing key questions in cancer research. The scheme funds basic and early-stage translational research across multiple biological scales, with explicit support for AI, computational, and multidisciplinary approaches that create or apply novel technologies and methodologies to address previously intractable cancer questions. Eligible research areas include cancer biology and disease mechanisms, cellular behavior, whole-body cancer processes, novel imaging and radiotherapy technologies, disease-specific preclinical studies, and early-stage translational research. The scheme supports projects integrating AI/ML for cancer detection, diagnostic algorithms, drug target identification, image analysis, and modeling tumor evolution. The 2026 outline application deadline is September 29, 2026, with full applications by invitation following outline review. Committee review of full applications is expected June 2027. The Discovery Programme Award is a closed scheme requiring pre-application contact with CRUK programme staff to discuss alignment and fit with funding priorities. CRUK's Cancer Research Horizons commercialization arm supports translation of AI-driven discoveries into therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices.

EQUAL Compute Network is an IDRC-funded initiative to address compute inequities limiting Global South participation in frontier AI research. The network supports researchers, public-interest compute providers, and policy actors in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia to evaluate compute needs, build shared compute infrastructure, develop pooled access models, and inform national AI compute strategies. Sub-grants fund research nodes, pilot deployments of shared compute clusters, and policy analysis on compute access. Aligns with the wider AI4D portfolio and complements Canadian and EU compute sovereignty initiatives.

The NSF State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs program (NSF 26-513) funds state or multi-state regional consortia that combine university, industry, philanthropic, and government partners to widen access to AI computing infrastructure for scientific research. The program's central premise is that the bottleneck in AI-enabled science is no longer algorithms but access - many institutions, particularly community colleges, primarily undergraduate institutions, and smaller universities, cannot reach the compute, data, and expertise that frontier AI research requires. The distinguishing and easily missed feature of this solicitation is what NSF will and will not pay for: NSF funds the coordination layer - consortium governance, workforce development for AI infrastructure professionals such as research software engineers and system administrators, and faculty training - but it does not fund the purchase of computing hardware, data resources, or software licenses. Consortia must demonstrate that they have independently secured those resources from state governments, industry partners, or philanthropy. This makes the program a poor fit for a single institution seeking a GPU cluster and a strong fit for a coalition that already has infrastructure commitments and needs the connective tissue to make them usable across institution types. Awards run $4,000,000 to $12,000,000 over five years, with roughly 10 awards per cycle. Deadlines are 4 November 2026 and 3 November 2027, recurring on the first Wednesday in November annually.

U.S. National Science Foundation State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs: Expanding Access to Compute for Scientific Discovery (AI Infrastructure Hubs) is sponsored by U.S. National Science Foundation. Supports state or multi-state regional hubs as consortia to expand access to AI compute, data, and software infrastructure for scientific discovery, workforce development, and faculty training through partnerships with government, industry, and philanthropy.

NSF 26-513 establishes State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs to expand access to AI compute for scientific discovery, particularly at institutions that have historically been priced out of large-scale GPU resources. The critical structural detail for anyone preparing a proposal is what NSF will and will not pay for: NSF funds the Hub's consortium coordination and governance, regional stakeholder partnerships, AI infrastructure professionals who support the Hub's infrastructure, and faculty training and instructional material development - but it explicitly does not fund the acquisition of the infrastructure itself. Hardware procurement is the responsibility of the regional consortium, which means a credible proposal must arrive with committed non-NSF capital for compute already in hand or clearly pledged. Awards run $4,000,000 to $12,000,000, with approximately 10 awards per cycle against roughly $100,000,000 in total program funding, and only one award will be made per state or multi-state region - so, as with several of NSF's 2026 place-based AI programs, the real competition happens within a state before the proposal is ever submitted. The program pairs compute access with workforce capacity building in AI for science across diverse institution types, including two-year colleges and community colleges, which are eligible as lead proposers. Deadlines recur annually on the first Wednesday in November: 4 November 2026, then 3 November 2027, and annually thereafter. Institutions are limited to one proposal, and individuals to one PI or co-PI role per deadline.

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.

The Biswas Family Foundation Fast Grants Program provides rapid funding for early-stage research projects at the intersection of artificial intelligence and health. Grants of $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 support 12-month projects focused on biomedical AI, healthcare innovation, computational medicine, diagnostics, scientific discovery, and AI-enabled research tools. The Foundation runs two Fast Grants funding cycles each year, emphasizing speed and support for promising early-stage and high-risk ideas.

ITL Grant Programs (Measurement Science and Engineering (MSE) Research Grant Programs) is sponsored by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The ITL Grant Program provides financial assistance to support research consistent with ITL's missions, including fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Cybersecurity, and Cloud Computing. NIST's role in AI is to develop the foundational and applied research that leads to trustworthy AI systems, establish technical requirements to cultivate trust in AI systems, and explore future AI computing paradigms.

AI Compute Grants is sponsored by Inference.net. Inference.net's Grant program offers free compute resources to developers and researchers working on open-source AI projects. This includes projects focused on improving LLM inference performance through optimization, hardware acceleration, or novel architectures, and developer tools that make AI development more accessible and productive.

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.

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.

The NAIRR Pilot Start-Up Project Request is the entry-level track of the National AI Research Resource, giving researchers new to NAIRR quick access to GPU and AI computing resources for proof-of-concept work and scaling studies before submitting a full Research request. Projects receive a three-month allocation of a single resource, with review decisions returned within 2-3 weeks and projects required to begin within two weeks of award notification. Resources include up to 2,000 GPU-hours across systems such as PSC Bridges-2, Purdue Anvil AI, SDSC Expanse AI, and TACC Vista.

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.

National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) / U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). 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.

National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot is sponsored by U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with 13 federal agencies and 28 industry partners. The NAIRR Pilot aims to democratize access to AI compute, datasets, and pre-trained models. Access is open to researchers, educators, and students at U. S. -based academic institutions, nonprofits, federal agencies, tribal agencies, and even startups with federal grants.

Empire AI Consortium is sponsored by New York State, State University of New York System, and philanthropic backers (e.g., Tom Secunda). Empire AI is a New York state project to further artificial intelligence technology research. It supports work on domains such as climate change, drug discovery, education, food insecurity, cybersecurity threats, and healthcare diagnostics. The consortium provides leading public and private research universities with access to state-of-the-art AI computing resources.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (Artificial Intelligence) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF SBIR program funds cutting-edge technologies in deep learning-based AI systems and AI-based hardware. It emphasizes next-generation AI technologies that are safe, reliable, fair, robust, privacy-preserving, and efficient. This program supports startups and small businesses to translate research into products and services for the public good, covering topics such as cognitive science-based AI, computer vision, conversational AI, language-based AI, novel AI hardware, sustainable AI for low-resource environments, and trustworthy AI.

AI Compute Grants (Inference.net) is sponsored by Inference.net. This grant program offers free compute resources to developers and researchers working on open-source AI projects. They are looking for novel applications that leverage large language models (LLMs), projects that improve LLM inference performance, and developer tools that make AI development more accessible and productive. This aligns well with AI edge computing verified inference.

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 Google for Startups Cloud Program provides venture-backed, early-stage startups with cloud and AI compute credits to build and scale on Google Cloud. AI-focused startups can receive up to $350,000 in Google Cloud credits (versus $200,000 for other startups) usable over two years, along with access to GPUs and Cloud TPUs, dedicated technical support, training on building generative AI applications with Vertex AI and Gemini models, and Google mentorship. The program is designed to lower the compute cost barrier for startups training and deploying AI models.

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.

Advancing Skills, Capabilities, and Expertise for New Development (ASCEND) is sponsored by Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). This grant reimburses employers for training that addresses the demand for rapidly evolving skills and local workforce conditions in key industries such as Advanced Manufacturing, Information Technology, Aerospace, Aviation and Defense, Semiconductor Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Nuclear Energy, Healthcare, and Shipbuilding.

Advanced Manufacturing Grant (NSF SBIR/STTR Phase I) is a grant from the National Science Foundation that funds early-stage R&D by U.S.-based small businesses developing deep technologies with strong commercial potential. Phase I awards provide up to $305,000 for 6- to 18-month projects; Phase II awards can reach $1.25 million. NSF takes no equity in funded companies, leaving founders full control over their intellectual property and direction. Eligible applicants must be U.S.-based small businesses with fewer than 500 employees and at least 50 percent equity held by U.S. citizens or permanent residents. NSF funds projects across AI, energy, medical devices, robotics, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and many other technology areas.

National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with federal agencies and industry. 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 to a permanent operations center.

The Army GVSC Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) funds commercial technology developers advancing vehicle autonomy, AI, power systems, and related defense capabilities for ground combat and tactical vehicles. The CSO uses a flexible, rolling acquisition pathway to prototype AI-enabled autonomous driving, perception, and platform-management technologies, with awards typically between $500,000 and $2,000,000.

AI Fusion seed grants is sponsored by Purdue University, Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering and Science. These seed grants foster interdisciplinary collaboration to advance AI applications in various fields, including agriculture. Examples of funded projects include developing real-time, AI-driven models to detect and mitigate corn tar spot and using AI models to study antibody response. The goal is to build teams that bridge disciplines and increase competitiveness for larger funding opportunities.

Cassava Technologies and Rockefeller Foundation AI Access for African NGOs is sponsored by The Rockefeller Foundation and Cassava Technologies. This initiative, a collaboration between Cassava Technologies and The Rockefeller Foundation, provides access to AI compute capacity to select Rockefeller Foundation grantees working in various African countries, including Nigeria. The goal is to ensure African-led innovations in sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and education have the resources to improve outcomes with AI. It aims to empower African innovators to build inclusive AI solutions using local datasets, languages, models, and voices.

NAIRR Operations Center (NAIRR-OC) is a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that funds the establishment and operation of a centralized National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource. The grant supports organizations capable of building and managing the NAIRR-OC infrastructure, which will provide researchers, educators, and institutions across the United States with broad access to AI computing resources, datasets, and tools. Award amounts vary based on scope and are determined through NSF's competitive review process. Eligible applicants are organizations with demonstrated capacity to operate national-scale AI research infrastructure.

Computer Science Education Fund Grant is sponsored by Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This grant program supports K-12 schools in Missouri to enhance computer science education through grants for curriculum development, teacher training, and resource acquisition. While not exclusively AI, computer science education provides a foundational pathway to AI literacy.

The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, led by NSF with 13 federal agencies and 28 industry partners, provides U.S. researchers and educators with no-cost access to advanced AI computing resources rather than direct cash awards. Resources include GPU clusters (NVIDIA H100 and A100), cloud environments, AI-ready datasets, and pre-trained models totaling roughly 3.77 exaFLOPS of compute capacity, backed by in-kind contributions such as Microsoft's $20 million in Azure credits. Projects receive 12-month resource allocations on a rolling basis until resources are committed.

NSF's ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support) program provides U.S. researchers, educators, and students with free allocations of high-performance and GPU computing time across a national network of supercomputing resources, in support of AI and machine learning research. Allocations are tiered, with entry-level Explore allocations requiring only a one-page abstract and approved within days, scaling up to larger Discover, Accelerate, and Maximize tiers for compute-intensive AI workloads. ACCESS provides in-kind compute rather than direct cash funding.

EDGE Grant Program is sponsored by State of Delaware. The EDGE Grant program offers funding for STEM and non-STEM businesses in Delaware, focusing on those with growth potential, job creation capacity, and measurable economic impact. It requires dollar-for-dollar matching funds. Small businesses focused on AI, computer vision, public safety, and security threat detection would likely fall under the STEM category.

Canada AI Compute Access Fund for Subsidized Cloud AI Compute for Canadian SMEs is sponsored by Government of Canada – Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). The AI Compute Access Fund, part of Canada's $2 billion Sovereign AI Compute Strategy administered by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), subsidizes access to cloud-based AI compute for Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises.

DoD SBIR 2026 Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is sponsored by U.S. Department of Defense. This is an umbrella announcement covering annual DoD SBIR/STTR solicitations, seeking innovative solutions from small businesses for national security challenges, with a focus on defense and dual-use applications. Specific topics related to AI computer vision ISR tracking would be released under this BAA.

Artificial Intelligence Grant is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF SBIR program welcomes proposals from small businesses focused on developing new high-risk technical innovations with significant potential commercial and societal impact in artificial intelligence. This includes sub-topics such as cognitive science-based AI, computer vision, conversational AI, language-based AI, novel AI hardware, sustainable AI, and trustworthy AI.

Part of the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, the AI Compute Access Fund helps Canadian AI firms access the compute they need to develop and commercialize AI. It provides contributions of roughly CAD 100,000 to CAD 5 million over up to three years, covering up to 66% of domestic cloud computing costs and 50% of foreign cloud services. The fund targets revenue-generating Canadian AI companies with active R&D teams, a clear commercialization pathway, and compute-service agreements, reducing the cost barrier to training and deploying AI models on Canadian and international infrastructure.

AI for Science Strategy is sponsored by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) / Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). This initiative aims to develop a world-class AI compute ecosystem to support AI-driven scientific research in the UK, starting with drug discovery and new treatments. It is part of a broader UKRI commitment of £1.

Economic Advancement Grants for Local Empowerment (EAGLE) is sponsored by Administration for Native Americans (ANA), Administration for Children and Families (ACF). EAGLE funds Native-led projects in agriculture, AI, energy sovereignty, and workforce to strengthen community and cultural success. ANA promotes self-sufficiency for Native Americans by providing discretionary grant funding for community-based projects.

Maryland Initiative Against Superbugs (part of UMD Grand Challenges Grants Program) is sponsored by University of Maryland, College Park. This initiative focuses on the discovery and engineering of bacteriophage, viruses that infect and kill bacteria. It combines AI, computational modeling, and experimental validation to identify and optimize phage therapies capable of precisely targeting and killing drug-resistant superbugs. While not exclusively C. difficile, research into phage therapy for C. difficile falls directly within its scope.

The AI Compute Access Fund, part of Canada's $2 billion Sovereign AI Compute Strategy administered by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), subsidizes access to cloud-based AI compute for Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises. It covers two-thirds of eligible costs for Canadian cloud providers (one-half for non-Canadian), with individual project funding from $100,000 to $5 million CAD over up to three years. The first cohort of 44 projects was announced in May 2026 ($66M of the fund), spanning life sciences, health care, energy, advanced manufacturing, agriculture, finance, natural resources and transportation. The fund is being topped up toward $1 billion CAD, with additional intake rounds expected.

NSF SBIR/STTR: A Pilot Emphasis on Scientific Instrumentation is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). This new pilot emphasis area within the NSF SBIR/STTR programs targets the next generation of scientific instrumentation. It will invest in technologies that open entirely new fields of discovery, including novel experimental platforms and advanced scientific equipment, which could include specialized hardware for AI compute.

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.

America's Seed Fund powered by NSF (NSF SBIR/STTR) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). America's Seed Fund, powered by NSF, offers non-dilutive funding to U.S.-based startups and small businesses developing deep technologies with commercial and societal potential. This includes a strong focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as cognitive science-based AI, computer vision, conversational AI, language-based AI, novel AI hardware, sustainable AI, and trustworthy AI. Funding supports research and development for prototypes, proof-of-concept work, and other scalable products or services.

The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, led by NSF in partnership with DOE, 13 federal agencies, and 28 industry and nonprofit partners, democratizes access to the resources needed for AI research. Rather than cash, awardees receive an integrated ecosystem of compute (HPC allocations and cloud GPU credits), curated datasets, pretrained models, and software platforms. Proposals are reviewed on a rolling monthly basis (submissions by the 15th are typically reviewed by month-end), and projects run for 12 months. A lighter Start-Up track offers a roughly two-week turnaround. All results must be open and publishable. The pilot has supported more than 600 projects and 6,000 students across all 50 states.

The Canada AI Compute Access Fund, administered by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), provides financial support to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) access the compute power needed to scale and commercialize innovative AI projects. The program has a total budget of $300 million CAD and offers awards from $100,000 to $5 million CAD per project over up to three years. The fund covers two-thirds of eligible costs for Canadian cloud-based AI compute services and half of eligible costs for non-Canadian compute services. Successful applicants receive funding as non-repayable, conditionally repayable, or repayable based on project alignment with public benefits and program goals. The fund is part of Canada's broader Sovereign AI Compute Strategy and complements the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program. On May 2026, Minister Solomon announced support for 44 Canadian companies across life sciences, healthcare, energy, advanced manufacturing, agriculture, finance, natural resources, and transportation through this fund.

The Scaleway Startup Program provides European early-stage startups with up to €36,000 in cloud credits for AI and machine learning workloads on Scaleway's sovereign European cloud infrastructure. Benefits include access to NVIDIA H100 and L40S GPU instances, Scaleway AI Inference and AI Training managed services, object storage, Kubernetes Kapsule, and serverless compute. The program targets European founders building generative AI, computer vision, and machine learning products who value EU data sovereignty (GDPR-native, hosted in EU data centers) and lower-cost alternatives to US hyperscalers. Participants also receive technical support, architecture reviews, and introductions to the Scaleway and iliad Group startup ecosystem (Station F, Kima Ventures). The program is rolling-application and complements other European compute schemes like OVHcloud Fast Forward.