Compute for Climate Fellowship 2025: AWS seeks 20 startups to help combat climate change
The call for Compute for Climate Fellowship 2025 will be open until April 6, 2025. The selection process will give priority to projects that can be completed in 2-3 months.
The International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI), an organization sponsored by UNESCO, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), announced today the call for Compute for Climate Fellowship 2025, a program that funds research and development (R&D) projects of startups using cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop solutions helping to combat climate change. This year, the program will select 20 startups from all over the world to build proof of concepts for free with the mentoring of experts from AWS and IRCAI.
AWS will invest up to $4 million in AWS credits to fund the construction of proof of concept tests for selected startups, which will also have access to technical resources, mentoring, AWS technologies, and IRCAI research capabilities. The selection process will prioritize projects that can be completed in 2-3 months, think big, and offer significant environmental benefits, scalability, and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The call for the Compute for Climate Fellowship 2025 will be open from today until April 6, 2025. Startups, entrepreneurs, and researchers from around the world are welcome to submit ideas that leverage advanced technologies to tackle climate change. This year marks the third time this program is being carried out, with an increase in the number of startups, which had eight in 2024 and four in 2023.
Follow us on: 
The program will have nine focus areas: clean energy, low-carbon transportation, sustainable agriculture and food, circular economy (industry and manufacturing), sustainable buildings, greenhouse gas management, carbon removal, environment and climate risk (water, pollution and biodiversity), and indigenous solutions for the climate crisis.
Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by climate change. At the same time, they often have a holistic understanding of ecosystems and an ancestral knowledge of harmonious practices of coexistence with nature and biodiversity, which gives them a unique perspective to create innovative solutions to climate problems. The program recognizes indigenous peoples as leaders in addressing the climate crisis, and will support innovators from these communities in the 2025 call.
"By expanding the Compute for Climate Fellowship program, we are not only increasing the number of selected startups, but also broadening the range of climate solutions that can be addressed and the applicability of AI in the climate domain," explained Davor Orlic, Operations Director of IRCAI. "Innovation happens when bold ideas meet the right support, and we are committed to providing that foundation to drive real environmental impact," he added.
"With the intensification of the effects of the climate crisis, it is necessary that we support the development of new approaches to bring to life climate solutions; that's why we are expanding the scope of the Compute for Climate Fellowship, to accept a larger number of startups," said Lisbeth Kaufman, Director of Business Development for Climate Tech Startups at AWS.
"From fusion energy to smarter grids, through generative AI models to discover climate-resistant plants and underwater drones to map the ocean, we have seen how cloud computing and AI can unlock new possibilities for a more sustainable future. We are redoubling our efforts in 2025, and providing more visionary founders with the resources and mentorship they need to turn bold ideas into a lasting impact," added Lisbeth Kaufman.
Lasting impact around the world
Since its launch in 2023, 12 technologically advanced startups have participated in the Compute for Climate Fellowship.
Among them, RealtaFusion, a startup incubated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has built a fusion energy device that achieved a plasma generation that broke world records last yearu2014a milestone in harnessing nuclear fusion as a new source of clean energy.
"The program has helped us accelerate the development of a unique plasma stability simulation, something that had never been done in the cloud before the program," said Kieran Furlong, CEO and Co-founder of Realta Fusion.
"Only a handful of supercomputers in the world are capable of handling these simulations and the ones that were available to us had a long waiting list. The grant significantly accelerated our research and development."
Based in France, the startup Cosma is using micro-submarine drones and AI to carry out scalable and cost-effective environmental studies for the sustainable management of the oceans, providing high-resolution data for offshore energy projects and environmental consulting.
"In addition to interacting with talented AI innovators from around the world, the Compute for Climate Fellowship program provided us with the cloud resources and expertise we needed to develop our first algorithm for detecting rare Benthic Species, which is a paradigm shift in marine biology," detailed Frédéric Mittaine, CEO and founder of Cosma.
The startups that apply but are not selected to join the program will have access to up to $5,000 in AWS credits through the AWS Activate program, as well as free workshops and training on how to use AWS's advanced computing services to build their solutions. They will also be invited to join the IRCAI Industrial Club.