OpenAI Offers U.S. University Labs Up to 30 Free Business Standard Seats

Under a new academic plan, OpenAI is making as many as 30 Business Standard accounts available to qualifying U.S. university labs for up to a year at no charge. The offer provides seats in the plan, but it does not automatically give lab members access to GPT-Rosalind.

A principal investigator or lab lead must apply for the lab. Labs at universities covered by an OpenAI Enterprise contract must request access through their institution. The offer covers other OpenAI models within plan limits; API services and credits are excluded.

Labs must receive separate approval through the trusted-access program to use GPT-Rosalind. The seat offer and approval to use the specialized model are separate steps.

GPT-Rosalind is designed for life-sciences research, including biology, drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, protein engineering and genomics. The plan also provides access to Rosalind Workbench, which links researchers to tools for life-sciences research.

Research data shared through the plan is not used to train OpenAI’s models by default. Enterprise security and privacy arrangements are not automatically included in the academic offer.

OpenAI introduced GPT-Rosalind as a research preview on April 16. On Sept. 11, it made the model available globally to eligible organizations through its trusted-access program. The academic plan adds a no-cost seat offer for eligible university labs while keeping model access subject to approval.