Call for Google Cloud Credit Proposals

Proposals were due on March 1, 2024. Award recipients will be notified in April 2024. 

Please note: This program is now quite competitive due to greatly increased demand. A PI may submit more than one proposal, but only one proposal is likely to receive funding.

The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence has partnered with Google to offer researchers the chance to submit proposals and receive up to $100,000 of credits to be used on Google Cloud in support of the HAI research vision (AI: Human impact, Augmenting human capabilities, and studying Intelligence). This program provides Stanford researchers the unique opportunity to access more credits than generally offered through the Google for Higher Education programs.

Proposals of all sizes will be considered; however, small and medium proposals for initial exploration of cloud computing usability will be prioritized. We will give preference to proposals that distinctively take advantage of Google Cloud capabilities rather than other computing infrastructures, including but not limited to: particular Google services, dynamic scalability to high distributed peak computing availability, high-availability servers, serverless event-driven computing, evaluation and testing against a wide variety of machine architectures, and needing not widely available particular capabilities, such as high-end GPUs. Credits are intended to be used to advance promising, novel, or emerging research that requires advanced computational resources provided by the commercial cloud.

HAI will evaluate projects on (I) the fit of the work with HAI’s focus areas, (II) how exciting and impactful we believe the research project will be, (III) the likelihood to initiate or sustain meaningful interdisciplinary collaborations across the University, and (IV) its need for, use of, and sensible allocation of cloud infrastructure. HAI does not attempt a detailed technical evaluation of your research.

HAI focus areas:

Human Impact:
Guiding, forecasting, and studying the human and societal impact of AI, domestically and globally
Augmenting Human Capabilities:
Designing and creating AI applications that augment human capabilities.
Inspired Intelligence:
Developing AI technologies inspired by the versatility and depth of human intelligence.

Proposal Requirements

Proposal length requirements by tiers:

  • Small: ≤ $5,000 for 12 months - One paragraph of text
  • Medium: $5,001 – $20,000 for 12 months - Up to one page
  • Large: $20,001 – $100,000 for 12 months - Up to two pages, excluding references

Proposals should cover the below items, but budget details are only needed for Medium and Large proposals.

  • Scope of Work 
    • Brief overview of the project (e.g., Background, Objectives, Expected significance, Relation to longer-term goals, Relation to the present state of knowledge in the field, etc.)
    • Statement of Computational Work: Description of experimental methods and computational work, including how you will use the cloud credits for this work
  • Expected results or deliverables and timeline
  • Budget: use Google Cloud Credit Pricing Calculator to estimate usage and produce a budget (for Medium and Large projects)
  • Budget Justification: Briefly justify how the requested machine type(s) and estimated usage is suitable for the proposed work

Period of Performance: One calendar year from the date the credits are deposited into the researcher’s account. Extensions are not permitted.

Applications will be accepted and considered three times a year. The Google Cloud Credit Program is becoming increasingly popular, so HAI may not be able to honor full credit requests and credits may be split across multiple deposits.

Proposals will be accepted from all Stanford researchers, however students or other researchers who do not have PI status will be required to secure endorsement of the proposal from their PI-eligible faculty mentor.

Grant recipients may be requested to participate in a short interview to describe their project and/or participate in a feedback survey to enable continuous improvement of the HAI-Google Cloud Credits Program.

Reporting Requirements

Timely and substantive reporting of the value derived from cloud credits grants is important to HAI’s ability to continue and expand our grant programs.

  • One year after account set up or upon exhaustion of the credits allocated, recipients must provide a final report of research results, credit usage, and a list of publications, articles, or conference talks emerging from the research.  Projects receiving larger credit grants will be expected to provide more detailed reports.

Data Security

Google Cloud Credits are suitable for Low, Moderate and High Risk Data as classified by the Information Security Office. Learn more about comprehensive information on classification.

Google is authorized for use with High Risk Data after a Data Risk Assessment is completed. Applicant agrees to adhere to the Minimum Security Standards for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Containerized Solutions and the Administrative Guide Section 6.3.1: Information Security.

Award Selection

These grants are made possible by a gift from Google.  Award decisions will be made by Stanford HAI.  Please see our statements on HAI’s commitment to independence, and to transparency around our values and our fundraising policy, as well as Stanford’s policy on openness in research.

Please read the Google Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions

Questions? E-mail us at hai-cloud-credits@stanford.edu

Stanford HAI