AWS Imagine Grants

The AWS Imagine Grant is Amazon Web Services' flagship unrestricted-cash programme for nonprofits, and the 2026-2027 cycle restructured the top tier explicitly around frontier AI. The Pathfinder Award funds groundbreaking, mission-critical projects at the frontier of artificial intelligence - generative AI, agentic AI and autonomous systems - and the solicitation is specific that frontier AI capability must be a core workload of the project within the one-year grant term, not an incidental feature. That requirement is the single most common reason applications fail: a project that uses a chatbot at the edge of an otherwise conventional service-delivery programme is a Go Further, Faster application, not a Pathfinder one. AWS states plainly that Pathfinder is designed for organisations with a strong existing data practice that are already in the planning phase, meaning the review favours applicants who can show data readiness and a concrete build plan over those pitching an idea. The cycle runs two rounds - Round One opened 19 March 2026 and closed 5 June 2026, and Round Two closes 14 September 2026 - with winners announced 1 December 2026. All three tiers pair unrestricted cash with AWS promotional credit, and no prior AWS usage is required, which keeps the programme genuinely open to organisations not already in the AWS ecosystem.

NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program is a grant from NVIDIA providing up to $60,000 per award to PhD students conducting research that advances accelerated computing and its applications. Now in its 25th year, the program invites nominations from doctoral students pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and related fields. Recipients receive not only research funding but also access to NVIDIA technology, products, and engineering expertise, along with a mandatory in-person summer internship. Students are nominated by their faculty advisors and selected based on academic achievement and research area alignment.