D - Research from the Oct. 8 call
This page reports what the sources say. It is not a position of the consortium.
Compute grant programs
| ACCESS (NSF) | Open, any time | “U.S-based researcher or educator, at the graduate-student level or higher”, at a two- or four-year institution | Account, project type, resource catalog, abstract and CV, then exchange credits | Explore and Discover: eligibility check. Accelerate and Maximize: panel merit review | 400,000 to 3,000,000 credits, or no limit for Maximize. 12 months or the grant length | Progress report for the second half; final report | | NAIRR Pilot (NSF and partners) | Rolling, monthly | US researchers and educators at academic institutions, nonprofits, federal and “state, local, or tribal agencies”, startups with federal grants | Form and “a three-page PDF proposal” | Validation, peer review, then a matching committee with agency and provider members | Matched resource. “twelve (12) months” | Reports at 1 and 6 months and a final report; “results must be open and publishable” | | AWS Cloud Credit for Research | Rolling | Faculty, research staff, graduate students | Online form | Not stated. “90 to 120 days” | Credits. Students up to $5,000; faculty not capped | Not stated | | Google Cloud research credits | Open | Faculty, PhD students, postdocs at accredited or nonprofit research institutions | Form: 250-word proposal, cost estimate, plan to fund the work after the credit | Not stated | Credits for 365 days | Not stated. No commercial use | | Google TPU Research Cloud | Open | Not stated | “Express interest” form | Not stated | Cloud TPUs “at no charge” | Share results; give feedback | | Microsoft AFMR | Closed | Not stated | Calls for proposals | Not stated | Foundation models on Azure | Not stated | | NVIDIA Academic Grant Program | Closed | Full-time faculty at a PhD-granting institution | Proposal template | “competitive”, reviewer team | Up to 30,000 H100 hours, or GPUs | Results to get another award | | Empire AI (New York) | Between rounds; next in 2027 | Faculty with PI status at each member (Cornell example) | Two short forms, per member | Not stated | Service units: one SU is one H100 hour | Not stated | | OpenAI Researcher Access | Open, quarterly | “early stage researchers”, with priority for “limited financial and institutional resources” | Online portal | Every 3 months | “up to $1,000” of credits, 12 months | Usage Policies apply | | Anthropic researcher access | Open, monthly | AI safety and alignment researchers | Form | First Monday of each month. AI for Science adds “a biosecurity assessment” | $1,000 in credits, more in “rare special cases” | Usage Policy applies |
Free and subsidized tiers
| ACCESS | All four types are at no cost | None. Size grows with review: Explore, Discover, Accelerate, Maximize | | Empire AI | Paid by Cornell’s Provost until November 2026 | “an SU is expected to cost $0.50” after that | | NVIDIA | GPU hours by grant | “discounts on hardware and software” | | Google | Colab with no application; TPU Research Cloud by form | Research credits for 1 year, then the applicant pays | | Anthropic | $1,000 by application | Buy credits “in the interim” | | OpenAI | Calls its credit “subsidized access” | Standard API pricing | | AWS | Credits by application | Not shown on this page |
Provider hard limits
- OpenAI: OpenAI Usage Policies 2025-10-29.
- Anthropic: Anthropic Usage Policy 2026-11-12. This version takes effect on November 12, 2026. The copy does not include the version in force today.
- AWS: AWS Acceptable Use Policy 2021-07-01 and AWS Responsible AI Policy 2025-01-13.
- Google: Google Cloud Acceptable Use Policy 2026-10-12 and Google Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy 2024-12-17.
- Microsoft: Microsoft Enterprise AI Services Code of Conduct 2026-05-01. The Acceptable Use Policy in the Microsoft Product Terms is not read.
Templates for CalCompute terms: NRP and Poppy
| Topic | NRP (National Research Platform) | Poppy (California Department of Technology) | | Who may use it | Faculty, staff or postdocs request a namespace; students join through a supervisor (NRP Getting started) | “an eligible State Entity, Local Government Agency, Academic Institution, or Tribal Organization”, for “official government business” | | Enforcement | “loss of access”; idle and under-used jobs removed (NRP Policies) | “suspension… or termination”; discipline and law enforcement referral |
⚠️ Contradiction: The Poppy service page says the provider “is contracted not to retain or use this data for model training”. The Terms of Use say “an LLM provider may access, use, and retain Prompts”. Only CDT promises not to train (Poppy Terms of Use (web); Poppy service page).