Compute Grants Program
We offer full and partial compute grants for projects that we believe have the potential to help people. We document our process and principles for transparency, as well as all of the projects that we fund.
Who we fund
We fund projects based on three foundational principles:
Scope: is it an interesting project? Has it been done before?
Need: does the project address a real need? Will it help advance science or benefit people?
Success rate: if the first two points are satisfied, how likely is the project to succeed?
We welcome applications from individuals and organizations alike. No academic affiliation is required to apply.
Who we don't fund
We welcome all applicants acting in good faith with the intent to help people. However, we will not fund projects that:
Are primarily intended for military applications or weapons development.
Serve partisan political campaigns or propaganda.
Involve activities likely to harm people, misuse sensitive data, or otherwise conflict with our mission.
We do not require you to pass through an external ethics board or ethics test before deploying your model on our network, though an ethics approval at a university or research institution may expedite our review.
If your project involves sensitive user data, especially personally identifiable information (PII), your application may be rejected or require additional safeguards. In such cases, we may suggest steps such as data anonymization, obfuscation, or use of differential privacy techniques before deployment.
Review process
After you apply through the Waitlist portal, we will send you an email within two weeks on whether you have been accepted or rejected, including a reason. We will also allow you to appeal any rejection via email if details about your projects were misinterpreted during the review.
We will estimate how much compute you will use on our network. We will send you a bill if you have received a partial grant: you may pay it or ask for reconsideration.
After payment (if any) is settled, we will be in touch with you to help you set your project up on the network. We'll provide you 1TB of storage on our servers for free, or you may use your own servers to send inputs and receive outputs. You may request more storage as part of your grant.
If you require more compute time, you may pay for it at the research rate (usually 95% discount vs market but varies depending on demand) or request another grant.
We might invite you onto a stream, podcast or blog to talk about your work. Of course, this is entirely optional. We do ask that you answer a few questions to help us improve our service after your project is complete. Your responses will be kept private.
We ask that you acknowledge Obit in your paper, GitHub or showcase to help more researchers find us.
Fast track
For urgent projects, you may email us at [email protected] after filling out a normal application. We will place your project in a "fast track". We typically review these projects within a few days of submission. Please only use the fast track for time-sensitive projects.
Grant amounts
Grants are awarded based on merit, not financial need. Funding decisions are not tied to an applicant’s ability to pay, nor do we use the grant system as a reward for giving us business.
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