Some of the best career opportunities in tech right now don’t come with a job title. They come with a fellowship offer.
If you’re a student — undergraduate, Master’s, or PhD — trying to break into artificial intelligence, you’ve probably noticed how crowded the space feels. Everyone wants to work in AI. Everyone’s completing the same online courses. So what actually separates the people who land meaningful research roles from those still waiting for a reply?
Often, it’s a fellowship.
The right fellowship doesn’t just pay your bills for a year. It puts your name alongside serious researchers, gives you a network that lasts decades, and signals to future employers that someone credible already bet on you. The programs listed here aren’t obscure grants buried on government websites. These are recognized, well-funded, actively recruiting opportunities — many with open applications right now.
Here’s what you need to know about all 12 of them.
Why AI Fellowships Are Different From Regular Internships
Before the list, it’s worth understanding what makes a fellowship distinct — because students sometimes apply to the wrong programs for the wrong reasons.
An internship is structured. You show up, join a team, complete assigned work, and leave three months later with a line on your CV. Fellowships are different. The best ones give you independence. You define a research question. You run your own experiments. You produce something that didn’t exist before you arrived.
That freedom is also what makes them harder to earn. Fellowship committees aren’t looking for candidates who are willing to work. They’re looking for candidates who already know what they want to build — and just need the resources to build it.
So if you’re thinking about applying, the most important question isn’t “which one has the best stipend?” It’s “which one matches what I actually want to research?”
Keep that in mind as you read through the list.
The 12 Best AI & Tech Fellowships Open in 2026
1. OpenAI Safety Fellowship
Organization: OpenAI
Location: San Francisco, USA
Level: Postgraduate / Researcher
There are very few fellowships where the work you do could genuinely influence the development of some of the most powerful AI systems on Earth. This is one of them.
OpenAI’s Safety Fellowship is aimed at researchers focused on making advanced AI systems safe — a field that has gone from niche academic interest to one of the most urgent priorities in tech, almost overnight. Fellows work directly with OpenAI’s safety team, which means real access to frontier models, alignment experiments, and interpretability research.
The stipend is competitive. The experience is hard to replicate anywhere else. And the network you build here tends to follow you for the rest of your career.
What makes it worth your attention: Not many programs give early-career researchers this level of proximity to cutting-edge AI development. If AI safety is your research focus, this should be at the top of your list.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/openai-safety-fellowship
2. Google DeepMind AI Master Scholarships
Organization: Google DeepMind
Location: London, UK
Level: Master’s Students
Google DeepMind barely needs an introduction at this point. The team that produced AlphaFold, AlphaGo, and Gemini runs one of the most respected AI research programs in the world — and they actively fund Master’s students to join that world.
The scholarship covers tuition and living costs, which removes the financial barrier that stops many talented students from pursuing graduate AI research in the first place. Recipients also get the chance to intern at DeepMind’s London labs, which is where the real value compounds.
One thing worth noting: DeepMind selects for depth, not breadth. They want students with a genuine focus area — whether that’s reinforcement learning, protein structure prediction, or something else entirely. Coming in with a clear research interest makes a real difference in the application.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/google-deepmind-ai-master-scholarships
3. Oxford Visiting Fellowship in AI Ethics
Organization: University of Oxford
Location: Oxford, UK
Level: Mid-career / Researcher
Not every important question in AI is a technical one.
Questions like who decides how AI systems are deployed? and what happens when an algorithm gets it wrong? are arguably just as consequential as anything happening in a research lab. Oxford’s Visiting Fellowship in AI Ethics exists for people who want to tackle those questions seriously.
Fellows spend time embedded within Oxford’s research community — contributing to workshops, policy papers, and cross-disciplinary conversations about AI governance. The program pulls in people from law, philosophy, political science, and public policy, not just computer science.
If you’ve been told your humanities background has no place in AI, this fellowship is proof otherwise.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/oxford-visiting-fellowship-in-ai-ethics
4. IAPS AI Policy Fellowship
Organization: Institute for AI Policy & Strategy
Location: USA / Remote
Level: Graduate / Professional
Most students don’t think of policy as a path into AI. That’s a missed opportunity — because governments around the world are scrambling to figure out how to regulate AI systems they don’t fully understand, and the people who can bridge that gap are in serious demand.
The IAPS AI Policy Fellowship places researchers directly into that gap. Fellows produce original policy analysis, work with senior advisors, and engage with ongoing debates around AI regulation, export controls, and national strategy. The program runs remotely or in the US, which makes it accessible to international applicants.
If you’re studying political science, international relations, law, or economics alongside AI — this fellowship was essentially built for you.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/iaps-ai-policy-fellowship
5. IPAI Foundation AI Fellowship
Organization: IPAI Foundation
Location: International / Remote
Level: All Levels
This one stands out for a simple reason: it’s genuinely open to applicants at all career stages, from final-year undergraduates to experienced professionals pivoting into AI.
The IPAI Foundation focuses on AI that creates measurable impact — in healthcare, climate response, agriculture, education. Fellows receive funding, access to a curated global network of researchers and practitioners, and mentorship from people who’ve actually deployed AI systems in the real world rather than just studied them.
For students who want to work on applied AI problems — not just write papers — this is one of the more practical fellowship options available right now.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/ipai-foundation-ai-fellowship
6. Google Public Policy Fellowship
Organization: Google
Location: USA and Multiple Countries
Level: Graduate Students
Every summer, Google funds a cohort of graduate students to work at policy organizations — think tanks, civil society groups, and advocacy bodies — focused on tech and internet governance. The fellowship runs for about ten weeks and includes a stipend from Google.
What makes this one particularly practical is the placement model. You’re not sitting inside Google. You’re at an external organization working on real policy problems — AI regulation, privacy law, platform accountability. Google covers your costs. The host organization gets your research. You get the experience.
For students interested in tech policy but unsure how to get a first foothold, this is one of the most structured entry points available.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/google-public-policy-fellowship
7. Horizon Fellowship in AI
Organization: Horizon Institute
Location: International
Level: Early-career Researcher
The Horizon AI Fellowship is designed around a simple premise: some of the most important AI research doesn’t happen inside large institutions. It happens when talented people are given unstructured time, funding, and a peer community — and trusted to figure out what matters.
Fellows receive unrestricted grant funding and access to an international cohort of AI researchers. There’s no fixed research agenda. You come in with your own ideas and develop them over twelve months, with the support of the Horizon network.
For students finishing their graduate degrees who want to pursue independent research before committing to a PhD or industry role, this kind of flexibility is rare and genuinely valuable.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/horizon-fellowship-ai
8. NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship
Organization: NVIDIA
Location: Your University
Level: PhD Students
NVIDIA’s graduate fellowship is a well-established program and one of the most financially generous on this list. Annual awards can reach up to $50,000, and fellows also get access to NVIDIA’s latest GPU hardware — which, if you’re doing deep learning research, is not a small thing.
The focus areas include computer graphics, high-performance computing, computer vision, and deep learning. NVIDIA’s research team mentors selected fellows throughout the year, and past fellows have gone on to faculty positions, senior industry roles, and leading research positions at major AI labs.
One important note: this fellowship is for PhD students already enrolled in a program. If you’re applying to doctoral programs this year, it’s worth shortlisting departments with faculty whose work aligns with NVIDIA’s focus areas.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/nvidia-graduate-fellowship
9. GovAI Winter Fellowship
Organization: Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI)
Location: Oxford, UK
Level: Early-career Researcher
The Centre for the Governance of AI at Oxford runs one of the most focused short-format fellowship programs in the AI space. The Winter Fellowship brings a small cohort of early-career researchers together for an intensive residential program — typically around two weeks — covering AI policy, long-term governance challenges, and strategic research priorities.
It’s not a long program, but don’t underestimate its value. The selection criteria are rigorous, the cohort is deliberately small, and the conversations that happen during the residency tend to shape research agendas for years afterward.
Fellows have their travel, accommodation, and meals covered. More importantly, they leave with connections to GovAI’s extended research network, which is one of the most active communities working on AI governance globally.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/govai-winter-fellowship
10. Google Summer of Code (GSoC)
Organization: Google
Location: Remote / Global
Level: Students and New Contributors
GSoC deserves more credit than it typically gets in conversations about AI fellowships. Yes, it’s a coding program. But a growing share of participating open source organizations work on AI and ML tooling — model training frameworks, data pipelines, evaluation libraries, and more.
The stipend ranges from roughly $1,500 to $6,600 depending on your country and project scope. The program runs for twelve weeks, entirely remotely. You’re matched with a mentor from an open source organization and expected to deliver a defined contribution by the end.
For students who want to build a credible open source portfolio before applying to research fellowships or technical AI roles, GSoC is one of the most practical starting points available — and it’s genuinely open to applicants from anywhere in the world.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/gsoc-google-summer-of-code
11. Oxford Accelerator Fellowship Program
Organization: University of Oxford
Location: Oxford, UK
Level: Entrepreneurs / Founders
This one is slightly different from the others on the list. The Oxford Accelerator Fellowship isn’t a research program — it’s designed for people who are building technology ventures and want access to Oxford’s research ecosystem, mentorship network, and potential seed funding connections.
That said, many of the ventures in recent cohorts have been AI-native: tools for healthcare diagnostics, climate modeling, educational personalization. If you’ve spent the last few years studying AI and have an idea you want to develop into something real, this fellowship gives you structure, accountability, and credibility.
The six-month program is based in Oxford. The application is competitive. But for technically strong students with entrepreneurial ambitions, it’s an option worth knowing about.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/oxford-accelerator-fellowship-program
12. DigiQ Student Research Fellowships
Organization: DigiQ Network
Location: Europe
Level: Master’s / PhD Students
Quantum computing and AI are converging faster than most people expected — and the DigiQ fellowship sits directly at that intersection. Fellows work within European research consortia on quantum algorithms, quantum machine learning, and related areas that are increasingly relevant to next-generation AI systems.
Travel, living costs, and research expenses are fully covered. The program runs three to six months and places students within active research groups across Europe.
Why does this matter for AI students specifically? Because quantum machine learning is a field with very few trained researchers and genuinely significant open problems. Getting in early — even as a fellowship, not a permanent role — positions you well in a space that’s likely to grow substantially over the next decade.
Full details → kaistscholarship.com/digiq-student-research-fellowships
How to Actually Get One of These
The honest answer is that a strong application to any of these fellowships takes longer to prepare than most students expect. A few things that genuinely matter:
Know what you want to work on. This sounds obvious but most applications fall apart here. “I’m interested in AI” is not a research direction. “I want to study how large language models fail on low-resource languages” is. Fellowship reviewers read hundreds of applications. The ones with a specific, well-articulated focus stand out almost immediately.
Show that you’ve already started. A GitHub repository with documented experiments. A paper — even a workshop paper. A blog post that demonstrates you understand a technical topic deeply. Any evidence that you’re already doing the work, not just aspiring to do it, significantly strengthens your case.
Apply earlier than you think you need to. Several programs on this list use rolling review, which means early applicants often get more careful attention than those who submit two days before the deadline during the final rush.
Treat the statement of purpose seriously. Not as a formality — as a piece of writing. Read it aloud. Cut anything that sounds generic. Ask someone who isn’t in your field whether it makes sense. The quality of your writing signals the quality of your thinking.
Get references from people who know your work. One letter from a professor who has actually read your research — and can describe it specifically — is more valuable than three letters from impressive-sounding names who barely remember your face.
Are These Open to International Students?
Most of them, yes. Google Summer of Code, the IPAI Foundation AI Fellowship, and the Horizon AI Fellowship are explicitly international programs with no country restrictions. The IAPS AI Policy Fellowship and GovAI Winter Fellowship also welcome global applicants.
Some programs — like the Google Public Policy Fellowship — run country-specific tracks, so the available placements and application processes may vary. Always read the eligibility section on the official program page before investing time in an application.
For students in Asia, Africa, or Latin America specifically: the IPAI Foundation and Horizon AI fellowships are worth prioritizing. Both have active outreach in emerging AI ecosystems and are genuinely trying to build a more geographically diverse fellowship community.
Key Takeaways
- AI and tech fellowships in 2026 span a wide range — from hands-on research at OpenAI to policy work funded by Google to quantum computing in Europe.
- Most programs are open to international applicants.
- The strongest applications have a specific focus, demonstrable output, and a clear explanation of why this program fits this research direction.
- Not every AI fellowship requires a computer science background — policy, ethics, and governance programs actively recruit from non-technical fields.
- Several programs use rolling review, so earlier applications often have an advantage.
Final Thoughts
The AI field is moving fast enough that opportunities which didn’t exist two years ago are now some of the most sought-after career entry points available. Fellowships sit at the center of that shift. They offer something that a degree alone can’t: direct evidence that you can do real, independent work in a field that rewards exactly that.
None of the twelve programs above are easy to get into. But none of them are impossible either — especially if you approach the application with genuine focus, a specific research direction, and work that speaks for itself.
The competition is real. So is the opportunity.
Pick the one that fits your research interests most closely. Start preparing now. And don’t wait until the deadline is two weeks away.
For more fully funded fellowships, scholarships, and internships for international students, browse the complete listings at kaistscholarship.com.