Commitment to be provided over 3 years to support AI education, job training, research in US
Google on Wednesday announced a $1 billion commitment to support education, job training, and artificial intelligence research at US universities.
"This includes making our AI and career training free for every college student in America through our AI for Education Accelerator — over 100 colleges and universities have already signed up," Google's and parent firm Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.
The funding, to be provided over three years, will support AI literacy programs, research grants, and cloud computing resources for university students across the US.
"We’re also announcing the Google AI for Education Accelerator, an initiative to offer free AI training and Google Career Certificates to every college student in America," Pichai noted.
More than 100 public universities, including the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, University of Virginia, and university systems in Texas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, have already joined the initiative, he said.
The $1 billion total includes the value of premium AI tools, such as Google's advanced Gemini chatbot, which will be offered to students at no cost.
Pichai noted that the initiative builds on Google’s recent efforts to make Gemini for Education available to students and educators worldwide without additional cost.
"More than 80% of the top 100 U.S. universities use Google Workspace for Education, which gives them access to Google’s best AI purpose-built for schools," he added.
