When OpenAI offered a salary of $18,300 per month for a six-month residency program, the talent war had already gone beyond the conventional scope. This equates to an annual salary of $220,000, surpassing the income of many senior engineers in the U.S.

Google's student researcher program targets PhD students, with an annual salary range of $113,000 to $150,000. Meta's research intern positions offer monthly salaries between $7,650 and $12,000, with internship durations of 12 to 24 weeks. These figures make traditional industry full-time positions seem comparatively insignificant.


This compensation level reflects the AI industry's intense demand for top talent. Leading companies are no longer satisfied with poaching experienced researchers but are now directly targeting emerging talents still in academic stages.

OpenAI's residency program is designed cleverly: participants join as full-time employees, are mentored, and work on actual research projects. This serves as both an early talent lock-in and a long-term investment. After six months, high-performing individuals can directly transition to full-time roles.

Google employs a flexible approach where students can apply and get reviewed simultaneously. The program spans multiple teams across DeepMind and Google Research, providing students with more choices and expanding the company's screening pool.

High-paying internships are concentrated in cutting-edge fields like machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. These areas have high knowledge barriers and long cultivation periods, but their commercial value has already been proven.

Behind this phenomenon lies the unique talent supply-demand relationship in the AI industry. Truly innovative researchers are limited in number, and each breakthrough can bring significant first-mover advantages. Companies are willing to pay premiums for potential technological breakthroughs.

For current students, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. High salaries come with higher expectations and fiercer competition. Internships are no longer just learning experiences but genuine research contributions.

This trend may further widen the gap between AI companies and other tech firms. When the brightest minds are drawn to a few leading companies, technological innovation will become even more concentrated.

The surge in intern salaries is just the beginning. As AI technology渗透s into more industries, the demand for related talent will only continue to grow. This talent war has yet to reach its end.