NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program

NVIDIA explicitly welcomes applicants from universities worldwide - recent cohorts have included fellows from institutions well beyond the United States, such as the University of Hong Kong and universities in Germany - making this one of the more geographically open corporate PhD fellowships. That said, the program carries an important practical requirement: award winners must be available to complete an in-person summer research internship at one of NVIDIA's offices (in the United States, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Israel, or Taiwan) before their fellowship year formally begins, which means visa and relocation logistics are a real part of accepting the award.

Candidates must have already completed at least one year of PhD-level study at the time of application and must not be expecting to graduate too soon relative to the fellowship's timeline (recent cycles required students not to graduate before roughly a year and a half after applying). Because the fellowship is professor-nominated rather than a fully open self-application, building a strong relationship with a supportive PhD advisor who is willing to submit or support a nomination on the student's behalf is an important early step.

The award itself, up to $60,000, is a meaningful supplement to typical PhD funding and reflects NVIDIA's strategy of building long-term relationships with top research talent it may later recruit as interns or full-time research scientists, though there is no formal employment obligation attached to accepting the fellowship.