NVIDIA opens graduate fellowships with awards up to $60,000

NVIDIA is taking applications for its 2027-2028 Graduate Fellowship Program, offering doctoral students grants of up to $60,000 each along with mentors and technical support. The company opened the intake on 30 September 2026.

The fellowship is in its 26th year and draws applicants from across the world. It is aimed at students whose research touches the technologies NVIDIA builds on, in fields spanning AI and machine learning, autonomous vehicles, computer graphics, robotics, healthcare and high-performance computing.

What a fellow gets

The award is not only money. Fellows are paired with an NVIDIA mentor and given access to technical support while their research runs, which for work that depends on accelerated computing can matter as much as the grant itself.

Eligibility and the deadline

Applicants must have completed at least their first year of Ph.D.-level study at the point of application. The deadline for the 2027-2028 academic year is 30 October 2026, and the placement comes with a condition attached: an in-person internship at an NVIDIA research office is mandatory before the fellowship year, so candidates need to be free for the summer of 2027.

Two decades of grants

Since the program began in 2002 it has awarded more than 220 grants worth roughly $8 million, according to NVIDIA. Fellowship applications are handled through the program's own site, where eligibility details and the application route are published.

Our opinion

Fellowships of this shape are quietly one of the more effective things a chipmaker can do. Doctoral research moves slowly, and a $60,000 grant plus a mentor rarely buys a company a product, but it does put a generation of researchers inside your toolchain years before they publish or found anything.

The mandatory internship is the tell. NVIDIA is not simply funding promising work; it is picking the people it wants to see up close, and the internship is where that judgement gets made. Students weighing the offer should read it as a two-stage commitment rather than a cheque.