OpenAI offers free AI access to 100,000 academic researchers

Investing.com -- OpenAI announced Wednesday it will provide 100,000 researchers at academic institutions with free access to its frontier AI models through a new program called ChatGPT for Academic Researchers.

The program will begin with 10,000 researchers this summer and expand to 100,000 researchers through 2027. Access is already available at institutions including the Institute for Advanced Study and École normale supérieure.

Participants will receive access to OpenAI's frontier models, including GPT-5.6 Sol Pro at launch. Each researcher can invite up to four collaborators from their institution. The workspaces include business-grade privacy and security protections, and data is not used to train models by default.

The initiative is part of a commitment of more than $250 million through 2027 to support external scientific research and discovery. This includes NextGenAI, a $50 million initiative supporting research institutions, and work with the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission to bring frontier AI to researchers at national laboratories and universities.

OpenAI reported that approximately 1.3 million people use ChatGPT for advanced science and mathematics each week, generating about 8.4 million messages. In mathematics, papers acknowledging ChatGPT's contribution on arXiv increased from 14 in February to 100 in the first three weeks of July.

Researchers in the top 20% of AI usage within their field submit requests for tasks estimated to require four hours or more at nearly twice the rate of their peers, at 7% compared with 3.5%.

Participants will receive access to the GPT-5.6 family of models. GPT-5.6 Sol scores 83% on FrontierMath Tier 4, which measures research-level mathematical reasoning, compared with 72.5% for GPT-5.5. On GeneBench Pro, which evaluates complex biological data analysis and scientific reasoning, GPT-5.6 Sol Pro solves 31.5% of tasks.

The program will offer training tailored to different experience levels and access to specialists familiar with research workflows.

The initial program is open to qualifying researchers at selected academic institutions that are recognized, degree-granting colleges or universities with a high level of research activity.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Anthropic plans IPO potentially exceeding SpaceX's $86B record - Bloomberg
• Fed’s Musalem keeps options open for September meeting
• HCW Biologics (HCWB) files for 1.24M share offering by selling stockholders