AWS and IRCAI are expanding the Fellowship to accept up to 20 companies and provide up to $4 million USD to help selected companies bring their ideas to life. The program funds projects that leverage advanced cloud computing, including generative AI and high performance computing, to solve some of the biggest challenges in the fight against climate change. Applications are open through April 6, 2025 for the new cohort.
The world needs solutions to the climate crisis, as temperatures in 2024 hit record highs of 1.29°C above the 20th-century average. In 2024, our planet experienced a series of major natural disasters caused by climate change, according to the scientific community, such as the flooding of hundreds of towns in Brazil, deadly heatwaveswith temperatures above 48oC across West Africa and the Sahel region, $80B USD in damages via Hurricane Helene in the United States, and catastrophic floods in Spain.
As global temperatures rise, AWS is stepping up our support for climate tech startups by expanding the AWS + IRCAI Compute for Climate Fellowship. Startups are the lifeblood of innovation, and climate tech startups in particular are playing a critical role in leading new and innovative solutions to address the climate crisis. Startups are inventing groundbreaking new science and technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, remove carbon from the atmosphere, and help the world adapt to and prepare for the impacts of climate change. These companies are leading the way in creating sustainable solutions that can help solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time. At AWS, we believe we can enable these startups to move even faster, by providing them access to advanced computing services, like high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), and generative AI, as well as guidance from our experts to help them build these solutions efficiently and with confidence.
Doubling the funding for the Compute for Climate Fellowship
In 2023 we launched the Compute for Climate Fellowship in partnership with the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI), an organization under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Compute for Climate Fellowship was a first-of-its-kind global R&D funding program providing grants in the form of AWS credits for groundbreaking proof of concepts (POCs) that think big and innovatively use advanced cloud computing like generative AI and high performance computing, and enable the world to more quickly address the climate crisis. Each Fellow company accepted into the program builds a groundbreaking POC climate solution that is funded by AWS, with technical and scientific advisors from AWS and IRCAI.Now, we are thrilled to announce that we’ve opened applications for the 2025 fellowship cohort, the third year of the program. As the effects of climate change are felt across the world, AWS and IRCAI are proud to more than double the program’s size and accept up to 20 companies from around the globe with up to $4 million USD total in funding. This is up from 8 companies and $1.5M USD in 2024.
Link: https://aws.amazon.com/startups/learn/compute-for-climate-fellowship?#overview
