OPEN SOURCE AGI GRANT PROGRAM
The Most Important Technology Ever Built Is Being Locked Behind Closed Doors.
We are funding the builders who will keep it open.
OPEN SOURCE AGI GRANT PROGRAM
We are funding the builders who will keep it open.
A few companies are tightening their grip on humanity's most important technology. Access is metered, priced to climb, and revocable overnight. A developer in Lagos, Bangalore, or São Paulo can lose the model their work depends on without warning.
The Sentient Foundation is backing the developers building AI in the open, and the products that put it in the hands of the people the market has always skipped.
No equity. No lockups. No claim on your work.
Just build.
Partners
THE WINDOW
For two years, open models trailed the closed ones by a wide margin, and it was easy to call the open bet the idealistic one. That gap has nearly closed. Open models are now within striking distance of the frontier.
The question is no longer whether we can build in the open. It is who gets there first.
If closed labs set the defaults, they get set behind glass: metered, surveilled, revocable, shaped for whoever pays most. If open builders win the race, the default flips because open weights, once released, can never be taken back.
That’s the window. It is open now, and it does not stay open. We are funding the people who move through it.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Anyone can run it, inspect it, and build on it, and that is why it works.
A tool you can be cut off from was never yours, and open weights, once released, can never be taken back.
It runs on the hardware people actually own, because the cheapest phone is the only computer most of the world has.
It makes real life measurably better, especially for those the market overlooked.
The most sensitive data never leaves the person's own device.
It hands people a capability, instead of harvesting them for one.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
A request for products in two halves. The first is for people directly. The second is the foundation that lets the first be trusted.
For the people the market forgot
A guide through a medical emergency with no signal. A guardian that stops a scam before an elder loses their savings. A tutor that teaches any child to read in their own language. A tool that pays a farmer what their crop is truly worth. A companion for an elder living alone. Defenses for the mind against deepfakes, and for a child's imagination against capture.
The infrastructure that makes it trustworthy.
A personal AI that runs on your own device and answers to you, not a boardroom. Proof that a model is what it claims and did what it says. Identity and safe hands for the agents about to act on our behalf. Compute that runs on private data without exposing it, and that no single company or country can switch off.
These are starting points. If you are building something open that puts AI in the hands of the people who need it most, we want to hear from you.
Read All 21[ + ]How it works
grants: no strings
No equity, no lockups, no claim on your work. For open-source maintainers, researchers, and public-goods builders. You keep everything you make.
INVESTMENT: FOR SCALE
Founder-friendly terms for teams building open-AI companies that intend to reach the whole world.
Applications open today and are reviewed on a rolling basis. No cohorts, no deadlines. A named technical panel reviews every application on merit, reaching deliberately into multilingual and underserved markets. Real builders with real repos move fast. So will we.
Beyond the grant
Help getting your product in front of the people it was built for.
Credits, so the model is never the thing that stops you.
Hands-on engineering support from the team behind the Sentient Stack, the people who build ROMA, Open Deep Search, and EvoSkill.
A real network of open-source AI builders to build alongside and learn from, plus events and meetups around the world.
OPEN SOURCE AGI GRANTS COUNCIL
We are assembling a council of experts to support the developers building in the open. Apply to join, and bring whatever you do best, whether go-to-market, technology, or general guidance.
Apply to Join the Council[ + ]