Anthropic gives free AI credits to 20 science groups worldwide

Anthropic, the company behind the AI assistant Claude, has named 20 scientific foundations, institutions and research groups as new partners in its AI for Science program. The program gives free Claude credits to researchers working on high-impact projects. Credits are prepaid access to the AI tool.

What changed

The program started in May 2025 by supporting individual scientists. It has since backed hundreds of projects in biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, climate science and math. Anthropic also launched a discounted Team plan for scientists. The new step is working through organizations, so the credits can reach more researchers in more fields.

How the credits are used

The partners fall into three groups, and each uses the credits differently.

• Foundations and societies receive credits and hand them to researchers they choose to fund.
• Research institutions use credits inside their own organizations.
• Some specific research projects get credits directly, with a focus on large public impact.

Examples already underway

Anthropic says scientists use Claude to generate hypotheses, design experiments, analyze complex data and explain their findings. Two partnerships stand out. With HHMI Janelia Research Campus, it developed the Model Hardware Standard, a shared specification that lets AI agents safely operate lab instruments. It is still in research preview.

The Allen Institute, known for large open datasets on the brain, cells and the immune system, is building teams of AI agents to analyze that data. Anthropic says this turns months of manual analysis into hours.

Why it matters

Faster and cheaper research could bring new medicines and climate tools sooner. Anthropic also says many of these projects will produce public goods: open datasets, open-source software, open standards and shared libraries. That means the benefits are not limited to the groups that received credits.

What is not known yet

Anthropic describes many of the collaborations as early stage. The announcement does not say how many credits each partner gets or what results to expect. Any discoveries are still ahead. Anthropic says it hopes to add more partners around the world.