Amazon's Massive $68 Million Program Will Pay Your PhD Tuition — Here's What You Need to Know

Why This Is a Big Deal

When a tech giant drops $68 million on university research, it's not just charity — it's an investment in the future of AI.

Amazon's new AI PhD Fellowship program represents one of the largest corporate investments in AI education, funding over 100 doctoral students at America's top research universities. But this isn't just about money. It's about creating the next generation of AI leaders who will shape how artificial intelligence impacts everything from healthcare to climate change.

"What makes this program special is how it brings together Amazon's real-world experience across diverse industries with the fresh perspectives of these top researchers to cultivate the next generation of AI leaders," said Rohit Prasad, Senior Vice President and Head Scientist in Amazon's Artificial General Intelligence organization.

Breaking Down the $68 Million

The funding breaks down into two parts:

$10 million in direct student funding annually for the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 academic years, covering tuition, stipends, fees, and travel grants for over 100 PhD fellows

$24 million annually in Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing credits, giving students access to the computational power needed for cutting-edge AI research

That brings the total to $68 million over two years across nine universities.

Each participating university receives approximately $1.1 million per year to fund selected fellows, making this one of the most generous corporate PhD fellowship programs in existence.

What Makes This Different from Other Fellowships

Most PhD fellowships provide funding and maybe some professional development. Amazon's program goes much further.

Direct Mentorship: Each fellow is paired with an Amazon research liaison — a senior scientist whose expertise aligns with their research. These mentors meet regularly with fellows to discuss their work and explore real-world applications.

"The funding will enable our students to explore topics that are at the cutting edge of their areas of inquiry, but it is through mentorship that they'll learn how to transform their groundbreaking ideas into deployable systems that can enhance people's lives," said Ed Schlesinger, Dean of Johns Hopkins' Whiting School of Engineering.

Real-World Application: Unlike purely academic research, fellows work on projects that Amazon believes could have practical applications and significant societal impact. This bridges the gap between theoretical research and real-world deployment.

Industry Connections: Fellows are nominated for paid summer internships at Amazon, giving them hands-on experience with the company's AI systems and building professional networks that could shape their careers.

Meet the Johns Hopkins Fellows

Seven Johns Hopkins students received Amazon AI PhD Fellowships, representing five different engineering departments. Their research spans an impressive range:

Chuanyang Jin (Computer Science): Developing AI systems with advanced social intelligence that can learn and coexist with humans. "Social intelligence isn't just a theoretical ideal in cognitive science," he says. "It is a practical necessity. These capabilities are essential for AI systems to operate safely and productively alongside people in ever-changing contexts."

Amandeep Kumar (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Working on computer vision and generative AI to enhance the efficiency of long-form video generation — technology that could transform content creation.

Tianhao Li (Materials Science and Engineering): Focusing on data-driven materials discovery, including high-entropy materials for clean energy, and developing AI frameworks for efficient material identification.

Yuxin Ma (Applied Mathematics and Statistics): Studying deep learning theory and the connections between data structure and neural network performance — foundational research that could improve how AI systems learn.

Caio Netto (Applied Mathematics and Statistics): Working on geometry-aware learning for non-Euclidean data to improve large language models' interpretability, robustness, and efficiency.

Jingyu (Jack) Zhang (Computer Science): Exploring natural language processing with a focus on foundational model safety and alignment — critical work as AI systems become more powerful.

Yang Zhao (Civil and Systems Engineering): Inspired by technology's impact in his home province of Gansu, China, Zhao researches how foundation models can enable economic growth and improve safety and quality of life. "My objective is to enhance the efficiency, trustworthiness, and interpretability of foundation models for domain-specific tasks in areas such as transportation and public health."

The AI2AI Connection

Johns Hopkins also announced three additional fellows through the JHU-Amazon Initiative for Interactive AI (AI2AI), a partnership that since 2022 has provided funding for faculty research and 17 doctoral fellows:

Siyuan Huang (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Studies AI, computer vision, large language models, multimodal learning, and person re-identification.

Yen-Ju Lu (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Focuses on bridging speech and text through multimodal large language models to create more reliable and efficient spoken language intelligence.

Yiqing Shen (Computer Science): Develops visual foundation models aimed at understanding and interpreting visual information for applications across various fields.

The Nine Elite Universities

Amazon selected institutions known for cutting-edge AI research:

• Carnegie Mellon University: 10 fellows studying everything from AI agent systems to geometric foundational models
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Long-standing AI research powerhouse
• Stanford University: Silicon Valley's premier research institution
• University of California, Berkeley: 10 fellows from the Sky Computing Lab
• University of California, Los Angeles: 15 fellows across seven engineering departments
• University of Texas at Austin: Major AI research center
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Strong engineering and computer science programs
• University of Washington: Receiving $2.2 million over two years
• Johns Hopkins University: 10 total fellows between Amazon AI Fellowship and AI2AI

These universities already maintain robust research collaborations with Amazon through Amazon Hubs, the Amazon Scholar Program, and Amazon Research Awards.

What Research Areas Are Covered

The fellowship supports research across core AI disciplines:

Machine Learning: The foundational algorithms that allow computers to learn from data without explicit programming

Computer Vision: Teaching computers to understand and interpret visual information from the world

Natural Language Processing: Enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language

Agentic Systems: AI agents that can take actions and make decisions autonomously

Large Language Models: Advanced AI systems like those powering ChatGPT and Amazon's own AI products

Generative AI: Systems that can create new content, from text to images to video

Automated Reasoning: Teaching AI systems to solve complex logical problems

The Industry-Academia Partnership Model

Amazon's fellowship reflects a growing trend: major tech companies investing heavily in university research rather than just hiring graduates.

"Programs like the Amazon AI PhD Fellowship create a powerful synergy," said Stefano Soatto, Vice President and Distinguished Scientist at AWS. "Universities provide the free and open environment where curiosity-driven research flourishes and seeds long-term progress, while we conduct problem-driven, customer-obsessed research that solves real-world challenges at scale."

This model benefits everyone:

Students get funding, mentorship, and industry connections while maintaining academic freedom

Universities receive funding for research and strengthen industry partnerships

Amazon gains early access to cutting-edge research and relationships with top talent

Society benefits from research that bridges academic innovation and practical application

How This Compares to Other Tech Company Programs

Several major tech companies run PhD fellowship programs, but Amazon's is among the most generous:

Google PhD Fellowship: Covers tuition and provides stipends but typically supports fewer students per year

Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship: Prestigious but highly selective with limited spots

Facebook/Meta Research PhD Fellowship: Similar structure but smaller scale

IBM PhD Fellowship: Long-running program but with narrower research focus

Amazon's $68 million commitment over two years represents one of the largest single investments by a tech company in university AI research.

What Fellows Say

Students selected for the program express excitement about the opportunity:

From Carnegie Mellon, one fellow studying AI agent safety said the support "could help AI agents self-correct harmful actions in real time and transform agent security into a reproducible, empirical science."

A UC Berkeley fellow noted: "Through this fellowship, Amazon and UC Berkeley are investing in the next generation of researchers, and I am excited to see how our PhD students will shape the future of artificial intelligence."

Yang Zhao from Johns Hopkins connected his research to personal experience: "I'm inspired by how the rapid spread of technology boosted productivity and improved people's lives in Gansu — the province in China where I grew up."

Amazon's Broader AI Investment Strategy

The fellowship is part of Amazon's massive AI investment strategy:

$20 billion in Pennsylvania data centers for AI and cloud computing infrastructure, creating 1,250 new jobs

CMU-Amazon AI Innovation Hub announced in June 2025 to bolster research on generative AI, robotics, NLP, and cloud computing

AWS infrastructure supporting the computational needs of AI research worldwide

Amazon Scholar program bringing university faculty to work part-time at Amazon

Amazon Research Awards providing grants to university researchers

The company is betting big that AI will transform not just its own business, but entire industries — and it wants to help shape that transformation by supporting the researchers who will build it.

How to Position Yourself for Future Fellowships

While the 2025-2026 cohort has been selected, Amazon plans to continue the program. Here's how to prepare:

Excel academically: These fellowships go to top students at elite institutions

Choose impactful research: Proposals that could have significant societal impact get priority

Build relationships: Connect with faculty who have Amazon partnerships

Publish research: Demonstrate your capabilities through peer-reviewed publications

Develop AI expertise: Focus on machine learning, computer vision, or NLP

Consider transferring: If you're not at one of the nine participating universities, consider applying for PhD programs at these institutions

The Bigger Picture

This fellowship represents more than just generous funding for graduate students. It's about shaping the future of AI development.

The researchers supported by this program will go on to lead AI development at major companies, launch startups, become university professors training the next generation, and set policy for how AI is developed and deployed.

Their work on AI safety, efficiency, interpretability, and real-world applications will determine whether artificial intelligence becomes a tool that genuinely benefits humanity or one that exacerbates existing problems.

"Close collaboration between academia and industry is critical to producing groundbreaking work that will shape technologies for years to come," said Martial Hebert, Dean of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science.

What's Next

The first cohort of fellows begins their work in the 2025-2026 academic year. Watch for:

Research publications from fellows as they make progress on their projects

Summer 2026 internships as fellows get hands-on experience at Amazon

Second cohort selection for the 2026-2027 academic year

Expansion potential if the program succeeds, Amazon may expand to additional universities

For students interested in AI research, this fellowship represents an incredible opportunity to receive world-class training, generous funding, and industry connections that could define your career.

And for society, it's an investment in the kind of thoughtful, safety-conscious AI development we need as these systems become more powerful and more integrated into our daily lives.