5 AI Fellowships Currently Open for 2026

In many ways, fellowships help bridge the awkward gap between learning something and actually doing something with it. It gives you room to test ideas, build real projects, and collaborate with people who are thinking just as hard about the same problems.

For many in the tech industry, that kind of space is hard to come by. You’re either stuck in a tutorial or thrown straight into a role where you’re expected to already know what you’re doing. But a fellowship gives you room to grow without feeling pressured to have it all figured out from day one.

So, for tech talent looking to launch and build projects with real impact, Techloy has compiled a list of five AI fellowships currently open for 2026.

host: human

Fellowship period: May and July 2026 cohorts (4 months each)

who the for: Researchers and engineers considering a transition to empirical AI safety research, regardless of past research experience.

position: Ontario (remote friendly), San Francisco, London, UK.

Qualifications: Intended for all nationalities. Applicants should have strong Python skills and a technical background in computer science, mathematics, or physics. Visa sponsorship is not provided. Fellowship focus: Fellows work on empirical AI safety projects across workstreams, including scalable surveillance, adversarial robustness, mechanism interpretability, AI control, AI security, and model welfare, with the goal of producing public products such as research papers.

advantage: Weekly stipend, computational funding (up to $15,000 per month), close mentorship from anthropologists, and access to a shared workspace.

scholarship: $3,850 per week.

Application deadline: May 3, 2026.

host: Pivotal Research (London Initiative for Secure AI – in partnership with LISA)

Fellowship period: June 29 – August 28, 2026 (9 weeks, extendable up to 6 months for strong projects)

who the for: Anyone over the age of 18 (from first-year undergraduates to experienced professionals to those without a university degree) interested in AI safety, governance, biosecurity, or related fields.

position: London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA), London, UK.

Qualifications: Open to all nationalities and backgrounds. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older. It is the applicant’s responsibility to meet UK entry requirements.

Fellowship focus: High-impact AI safety research across areas such as technical safety, AI governance, assessment, AI control, and biosecurity. This typically results in a paper, policy brief, or equivalent work product.

advantage: Weekly one-to-one mentoring with an expert researcher, dedicated research administration support, LISA’s face-to-face co-working space with meals during the week, housing support (£2,000 ($2,719) for researchers outside London), travel to London, and budget calculations. scholarship: £6,000-8,000 ($8,158-$10,877) for a nine-week program.

Application deadline: May 3, 2026.

host: Code for Africa (CfA) / Digitalise Youth Consortium

Fellowship period: 4 months.

who the for: An African-based technologist with a proven track record of building practical AI tools who is looking to work directly with Human Rights Defenders (HRD) organizations in the Sahel and neighboring regions.

position: Remote; Applicants must have ties to the eligible country (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Cameroon, South Sudan, Ethiopia, or Somalia).

Qualifications: Applicants must demonstrate a connection to African communities and have experience in AI modeling (NLP, computer vision, or predictive analytics), prototyping in resource-constrained environments, and co-creating solutions with communities and civil society organizations. Must be fluent in English, French, or Arabic. Familiarity with open source tools and open data principles is expected. A strong commitment to ethical AI, human rights, and responsible practices is essential.

Fellowship focus: We help human rights organizations enhance or design AI-enabled tools and workflows for citizen engagement, countering disinformation, and protecting public speech. Deliverables include a multilingual research assistant, text analysis and summarization tools, a harmful narrative detection system, a research brief, an AI prototype, and expansion plans for widespread adoption across the region.

advantage: Instruction from CfA’s TechLab, DataLab, and AI Sandbox. Guidance from global AI experts, civil society organizations, and policymakers. Collaboration with consortium partners including AfricTivistes, European Partnership for Democracies (EPD), Canal France Internationale (CFI), World Scout Agency for Africa (WOSM) and Kofi Annan Foundation (KAF). and the opportunity to present the capstone project to local, national, continental, and global audiences.

scholarship: $500 per month for the duration of the program.

Application deadline: May 11, 2026.

host: Watson Research Institute (provided by Google)

Fellowship period: From September 1, 2026 to January 14, 2027 (16 weeks).

who the for: Impact-driven entrepreneurs and community leaders who are actively using or exploring AI and technology to solve pressing local challenges within the Google Datacenter community.

position: Virtual (participants based in Google datacenter communities in the US, UK, Netherlands, Finland, and other listed regions).

Qualifications: Applicants must be 18 years of age or older, reside in or actively serve a designated Google datacenter community, and lead a community-based initiative or startup (nonprofit or for-profit) with a proven track record of active users, pilot programs, and early funding.

Fellowship focus: Build your leadership capabilities, AI skills, and entrepreneurial growth to scale community-driven solutions. Fellows also create and lead local Basecamp community workshops to impact the community at large.

advantage: Leadership and AI skills training workshops, personalized mentoring from practitioners, access to Google AI products and resources, financial tools and frameworks, pitch training, virtual summits, and long-term alumni support.

scholarship: $1,000 to support Basecamp’s work and community efforts.

Application deadline: July 12, 2026.

host: OpenAI

Fellowship period: September 14, 2026 – February 5, 2027 (approximately 5 months)

who the for: Researchers, engineers, and practitioners outside OpenAI. This includes researchers in the fields of computer science, cybersecurity, social science, privacy, and human-computer interaction who want to work on high-impact AI safety and integrity research.

position: Constellation Workspace, Berkeley, CA (recommended). Remote participation is also possible.

Qualifications: Open to external applicants from all over the world. There are no strict educational requirements. Research ability, technical judgment, and execution ability are given priority over qualifications. We welcome applications from a variety of fields. A letter of recommendation is required. Visa support is available through multiple channels, including J-1, F-1/CPT (full-time only), and Optional Practical Training (OPT), which requires Designated School Official (DSO) approval. Other visa situations may also be accommodated.

Fellowship focus: Safety research related to existing and future AI systems. Priority areas include safety assessments, ethics, robustness, scalable mitigations, privacy protection safety methods, agent monitoring, and high-severity misuse areas. Fellows are expected to produce substantial research output by the end of the program.

advantage: A weekly salary, computing support (up to $15,000 per month), ongoing mentorship from OpenAI’s San Francisco-based safety and coordination team, access to a peer cohort at Constellation (Berkeley), and the opportunity to contribute to the broader AI safety research community. Mentors include Chloé Bakalar, Micah Carroll, Tomek Korbak, Karan Singhal, and others from OpenAI’s Safety and Coordination team.

scholarship: $3,850 per week (full time, 40 hours per week scheduled).

Application deadline: May 3, 2026.