OpenAI to Give 100,000 Academic Researchers Free Access to Its Top Models via ChatGPT for Academic Researchers

OpenAI has announced ChatGPT for Academic Researchers, a new program offering academic researchers free access to frontier models including ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex. It launches with 10,000 researchers this summer and aims to scale to 100,000 by 2027.

Details

• Scale and timeline: Starts with 10,000 researchers this summer, scaling to roughly 100,000 by 2027. Founding institutions include the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and France’s École normale supérieure (ENS)
• Models available: At launch, researchers get GPT-5.6 Sol Pro (flagship), GPT-5.6 Terra for everyday research, and GPT-5.6 Luna for lightweight tasks. Sol scores 83% on FrontierMath Tier 4 (versus 72.5% for GPT-5.5) and solves 31.5% of tasks on the GeneBench Pro benchmark
• Research support features: Enhanced Deep Research, higher usage limits, and larger context windows, plus more than 75 life-science skills covering genetics, genomics, protein modeling, and drug discovery. Research connectors give access to scientific literature databases, genomic databases, and satellite imagery
• Privacy and support: Business-grade privacy and security apply, with data excluded from model training by default. Training and hands-on support are tailored to researchers’ experience levels
• Eligibility: Open to researchers at recognized, degree-granting colleges and universities with a high level of research activity. Applicants must verify their institutional affiliation and describe active research; once approved, they can invite up to four collaborators from the same institution
• Financial commitment: OpenAI plans to invest more than $250 million through 2027 in external scientific research, including the $50 million NextGenAI initiative
• Usage context: Roughly 1.3 million people currently use ChatGPT weekly for science and math, generating 8.4 million messages a week. The top 20% of AI users are nearly twice as likely as their peers to delegate tasks estimated to take four or more hours

How to try it

• Researchers at a degree-granting institution with a high level of research activity can apply via OpenAI’s program page
• Applications require verifying institutional affiliation and describing current research
• Once approved, researchers can invite up to four collaborators from the same institution