Google said it will spend $1 billion over the next three years to expand artificial-intelligence education and research across U.S. higher-education institutions and nonprofits. The AI for Education Accelerator, already signed by more than 100 colleges including Texas A&M and the University of North Carolina, will offer cash grants, cloud-computing credits and free access to an upgraded version of the company’s Gemini chatbot. Google Career Certificates in AI will also be made available at no charge. Senior Vice President James Manyika told Reuters the programme is intended to reach every accredited nonprofit college in the United States and could be replicated abroad. “We’re hoping to learn together with these institutions about how best to use these tools,” he said, declining to detail the split between direct grants and in-kind services. Alongside the funding pledge, Google introduced Guided Learning, a new mode inside the Gemini app that breaks lessons into step-by-step prompts, quizzes and visual aids. Built on Google’s education-focused LearnLM model, the feature is designed to deepen student understanding rather than simply deliver answers, mirroring OpenAI’s recently launched Study Mode in ChatGPT. The twin announcements underscore intensifying competition among technology firms to embed their AI products in classrooms. Microsoft committed $4 billion to global AI education initiatives in July, while rivals OpenAI, Anthropic and Amazon have each rolled out student-oriented tools in recent months.