NVIDIA Inception Program

NVIDIA's Academic Hardware Grant Program donates GPU hardware to qualifying academic researchers, with a specific track focused on AI Safety and Trustworthy AI research (including interpretability, alignment, evaluation, red-teaming, and bias/fairness). Awardees receive workstation- or datacenter-class NVIDIA GPUs delivered to their institutions for use in research projects. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis through the NVIDIA Higher Education and Research portal. Projects must produce a publishable research output or open-source artifact and acknowledge NVIDIA's hardware contribution. The AI Safety track is specifically highlighted by NVIDIA's collaboration with the AI Safety Directory and prioritizes researchers working on interpretability, evaluations, robustness, and trustworthy ML. Strong fit for graduate students, postdocs, and early-career faculty doing AI safety, alignment, or interpretability research at universities without existing GPU access, as well as nonprofit AI safety research organizations.

NVIDIA's Applied Research Accelerator Program provides academic researchers with GPU hardware, cloud compute, and cash support in three tiers: Base ($20K for projects with real-world impact potential), Adoption ($60K for projects with commercial or government adoption plans), and Production ($160K when organizations invest in production conversion). The program supports research with practical applications in GPU-accelerated computing, AI, machine learning, data analytics, and HPC. Applications are reviewed quarterly with four annual cycles: Q1 submissions decided June, Q2 decided September, Q3 decided December, Q4 decided March.

Community Rewards Giving Program is a grant from the Nusenda Foundation that strengthens communities across New Mexico by supporting nonprofits and public schools working to improve people's lives. The program is the Foundation's primary giving vehicle and awards grants of $2,500 to $15,000. Eligible applicants are 501(c)(3) nonprofits and public schools serving New Mexico communities. Applications for the most recent cycle closed March 31, 2026. The Nusenda Foundation's giving philosophy emphasizes community-driven impact aligned with the credit union's values of shared purpose and collective well-being.