Amazon launches $68 million AI PhD Fellowship program across nine US universities
Amazon has announced a $68 million AI PhD Fellowship program designed to support more than 100 doctoral students researching artificial intelligence at nine US universities.
The program, which will run from 2025 to 2027, will provide $10 million in student funding and $24 million in annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing credits. Each participating university will receive $1.1 million per year to fund tuition, stipends, and fees for selected fellows.
Amazon, known for its e-commerce, cloud computing, and AI development work through Amazon Web Services and its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) organization, said the program will encourage practical research in key AI disciplines including machine learning, computer vision, and natural-language processing.
Rohit Prasad, Senior Vice President and Head Scientist in Amazon’s AGI organization, says: “Amazon’s AI PhD Fellowship program reflects our ongoing commitment to the academic community. We're fortunate to collaborate with some of the nation's brightest PhD students who are advancing critical areas in AI — from high-performance chips and hardware to networking, software, foundation models, applications, and more.”
He added that the program combines Amazon’s real-world experience with academic innovation. “What makes this program special is how it brings together Amazon's real-world experience across diverse industries with the fresh perspectives of these top researchers to cultivate the next generation of AI leaders. We believe investing in future talent is essential to moving the field forward and creating truly useful AI that benefits everyone.”
Collaboration across nine universities
Each fellow will be paired with an Amazon mentor working in a related field to guide research and discuss real-world applications. The universities involved, including MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Washington. All have existing research partnerships with Amazon through initiatives like the Amazon Hubs program and Amazon Research Awards.
Stefano Soatto, Vice President and Distinguished Scientist at AWS, comments: “Programs like the Amazon AI PhD Fellowship create a powerful synergy. Universities provide the free and open environment where curiosity-driven research flourishes and seeds long-term progress, while we conduct problem-driven, customer-obsessed research that solves real-world challenges at scale.”
Research areas for the fellowship include agentic systems, large language models, generative AI, and automated reasoning.
Rashid Bashir, Dean of the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says: “By investing in our students’ potential, Amazon is not just advancing research in artificial intelligence but is helping build the workforce of tomorrow.”
