Anthropic expands free Claude credits to scientific institutions

Anthropic is expanding its AI for Science program through partnerships with 20 scientific foundations, institutions and research groups worldwide. The program, launched in May 2025, provides free Claude credits for high-impact scientific projects. The expansion moves beyond support for individual scientists, giving organizations resources to distribute to researchers or use internally.

Participating funders include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Simons Foundation, Schmidt Sciences and the US National Science Foundation. Institutional partners include the Space Telescope Science Institute, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Francis Crick Institute and European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Supported initiatives span brain mapping, climate modeling, tumor imaging, rare disease research and computer-verified mathematics.

Researchers are using Claude to generate hypotheses, design experiments, analyze complex data and communicate findings. Existing collaborations include work with HHMI Janelia Research Campus on the Model Hardware Standard, a shared specification intended to let AI agents safely operate laboratory instruments, currently in research preview. The Allen Institute is also building teams of AI agents to analyze its open scientific datasets.

Many collaborations remain at an early stage. Anthropic expects projects to produce resources for the wider scientific community, including open datasets, open-source software, open standards and shared libraries, and plans to extend the program to more partners worldwide.