Free AI compute, found and checked. Who qualifies and the catch, up front.
API credits, free inference tiers, startup programs and research grants from the frontier labs and the long tail. Every offer is checked against the provider’s own page: value, eligibility, limits, deadline, fine print.
VC-backed startups building on Gemini can get up to $350,000 in Google Cloud credits over two years.
For: Startups that raised Pre-Seed/Seed within 5 years (or Series A within 12 months), founded within 5 years, built on Gemini, with under $5,000 in prior Google Cloud credits
VC-backed startups building on Gemini can get up to $350,000 in Google Cloud credits over two years.
Startups that raised Pre-Seed/Seed within 5 years (or Series A within 12 months), founded within 5 years, built on Gemini, with under $5,000 in prior Google Cloud credits
Credits over 2 years
Catch: Eligibility is at Google's discretion. Third-party models (e.g. Claude on Vertex) are billed directly and not covered by credits. Credits are tied to actual spend, not paid upfront.
Microsoft for Startups offers Azure credits of up to $150,000, AI tools and technical support to eligible startups.
Startups; exact criteria are set in the application
Catch: 'Up to' $150,000: most startups start with a much smaller grant that scales through milestones. The landing page does not list the full eligibility rules or credit expiry; read them in the sign-up flow.
Open Kaggle competitions (ARC-AGI-2 and ARC-AGI-3) plus a paper prize, with $2M in prizes and submissions due Nov 2, 2026.
Anyone with a Kaggle account
Ends 2 Nov
Catch: Winning solutions typically must be open-sourced, and notebooks run under Kaggle's compute limits. Kaggle deadlines are at 11:59 PM UTC on the stated day. Check prize rules per track.
Online build Nov 3-8, 2026 on lablab.ai: build a sandboxed agent on Vultr; every participant gets $200 in Vultr credits.
Individuals and teams; on-site phase needs approval
Ends 8 Nov
Catch: Prize pool figures differ across lablab and Vultr pages ($10,000+ vs $9,000 + $5,000 credits); check the event page. The on-site phase is for approved teams only. End time on Nov 8 is not stated.
AWS Activate gives startups $1,000-$5,000 (self-funded) or up to $200,000 (via an Activate Provider) in AWS credits, usable on Bedrock.
Pre-Series B startups founded in the last 10 years, on a paid-tier AWS account, new to Activate credits
Catch: The Portfolio tier needs an Org ID from an Activate Provider (accelerator, angel or VC). AWS accounts on the Free plan are not eligible for promotional credits. Credits are subject to AWS promotional credit terms.
Seed-to-Series A startups new to Modal can apply for a one-time grant of free GPU credits plus engineering support.
Seed to Series A startups new to Modal that raised VC from a Modal partner fund or over $1M from any fund
Catch: One-time grant per tier; you can't reapply once you receive credits. Exact dollar amounts are not published. Larger custom credits only for Series B+ or partner-VC companies.
Approved startups in Europe and Asia start with $1,000 of fal credits, scaling to $5,000 as monthly spend grows.
Startups in Europe or Asia with traction or institutional VC backing
Catch: Only for teams based in Europe & Asia. Usually an intro call is part of approval, one application per company every 3 months, and credits cannot be resold or transferred. Partner-referred applications get priority.
Virtual 10-day hackathon building on Meta's Muse models for a share of $1,000,000 in cash prizes; application closes October 25.
Developers worldwide, apply and get accepted (rolling review)
Ends 2 Nov
Catch: Application deadline is Oct 25, 11:59 PM ET (or earlier if the 20,000 cap fills). Acceptance is needed to participate. Partner credits go only to select participants.
Opt in to share API traffic with OpenAI and eligible orgs get up to 1M-10M complimentary tokens a day on listed models.
Eligible API organizations only; the org owner must opt in on the data sharing settings page
Daily quota, by model group and usage tier
Catch: Your prompts and outputs are shared with OpenAI and can be used to improve its models. Not every org is eligible (you only see the offer if you are), you need a positive account balance, and Zero Data Retention accounts cannot opt in. Fine-tuning, evals and tool use are excluded; overage is billed at normal rates.
Selected startups get $15K-$50K in Together platform credits plus free forward-deployed engineering hours, based on funds raised.
Startups, tiered by amount raised; selection-based
Catch: Selective application, not automatic. Credits do not apply to Reserved GPU Clusters. Together docs also say regular accounts have no free trial and need a minimum credit purchase ($15 first purchase per its billing docs).