Anthropic offers scientists free access to Claude

Anthropic is expanding its support for scientific research with a new Claude plan for research teams, offering thousands of scientists free access to its AI models.

The program will initially provide 10,000 spots for researchers worldwide for one year. Standard access will be free, while premium accounts with five times the usage limits will cost $15 per month. Principal investigators and research leads at academic or nonprofit institutions can apply and, once accepted, add members of their labs to a shared workspace. Anthropic says it plans to expand the program beyond the initial 10,000 participants over time.

The company is also broadening its AI for Science program, which provides individual research projects with up to $50,000 in compute credits. While the initiative previously focused largely on biology, Anthropic is now opening it to researchers in other fields, including areas with particularly demanding computational workloads.

Access to Claude’s most capable models will remain more restricted in sensitive areas. Researchers working in biology and chemistry are currently limited to Opus-class models, and Claude Fable remains unavailable for requests involving professional drug development or biological research because of dual-use concerns. Anthropic is separately testing access to its flagship Mythos-class models for life sciences through a closed program developed with the US government.