Global AI Giants Offer Sky-High Intern Salaries: OpenAI and Anthropic Exceed $5,000/Day

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010 )

In 2026, the baseline for intern salaries among domestic college students is a median monthly wage of 5,000 yuan; in first-tier cities, if the role is technical, it can reach 10,000 yuan.

I originally didn’t feel too bitter about embracing the era’s advantages and accepting professional missteps, until I came across—

An AI company intern earns over $5,000 in a day... A day? $5,000?

It’s so frustrating. I casually gathered the daily intern salaries of 12 global AI giants—from OpenAI and Anthropic to ByteDance and DeepSeek—by checking official job postings, websites like levels.fyi and Glassdoor（Odaily Planet Daily Note: Salary inquiry websites, similar to the Chinese version of Boss Zhipin + Maimai）, and employee leaks on domestic social media, then cross-verified the data.

It turns out that this kind of high salary isn't unique to just one company. It's clear that the battle for talent in the AI industry has entered a fever pitch.

Next, I’ve ranked the top AI giants from both domestic and international markets, ordered from most impressive to least impressive (there’s no “low” tier here), and it might completely reshape your perception of the word “intern.”

First, let’s look at the two top-tier "dream jobs," both with daily salaries exceeding 5,000 yuan.

First place, OpenAI Residency, with a daily salary of approximately 5,625 yuan.

A monthly salary of $18,333, equivalent to over 120,000 RMB. This is stated directly on OpenAI’s official website and marked on all multilingual pages—undoubtedly true.

This is a six-month full-time research program where you’ll be assigned directly to core teams such as large models, reinforcement learning, alignment, and security, working alongside full-time researchers. Upon completion, you may transition into a full-time role.

In short, this is OpenAI’s pipeline for future geniuses, training the next generation of leaders in AI who will contribute to the advancement of AGI. You’ll work directly at OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco, with a minimum of three days per week on-site, and your compensation will be nearly equivalent to that of internal OpenAI researchers.

Of course, these researchers are all top-tier selections. OpenAI has recently launched a short-term "Safety Internship" program similar to Anthropic’s elite internship initiative, open from September 14, 2026, to February 5, 2027.

Second place, Anthropic AI Safety Fellows, daily salary of approximately 5,198 yuan.

Weekly salary of $3,850, clearly listed on the Anthropic website and the official alignment blog—this is the most reliable data point in this survey.

A 4-month project, 40 hours per week. In addition to salary, each person receives $15,000 per month in computing power funding—yes, you read that right: $15,000 per month, use it however you like. This is also a special benefit from a major AI company, achieving阶段性 "Token freedom."

What was the level of the first cohort? Over 80% published papers, and more than 40% transitioned directly into full-time roles. Even more striking is the salary increase: the first cohort in 2024 earned just $2,100 per week, but by 2026, it jumped to $3,850—a rise of over 80% in two years. This surge clearly shows just how scarce true AI talent is.

Both positions share a common trait: extremely high entry barriers and very limited openings—they are essentially "pre-hiring," using the guise of internships to secure future top researchers.

After seeing the ceiling, take a look at the regular interns at major U.S. companies. Note that these are “regular” interns, not any special talent programs.

Meta, daily salary approximately 3,780 yuan. Hourly rate of $70, corroborated by dual sources levels.fyi and Glassdoor—one reports $70, the other $56 to $82 (average $67), closely aligned. The official job description lists a monthly salary range of $7,188 to $12,134, plus an additional monthly housing allowance of about $2,600.

Google, daily wage of approximately 3,400 yuan. Hourly rate of $62.98; bachelor’s degree positions equivalent to an annual salary of $92,000 to $122,000, doctoral positions $113,000 to $150,000. Variations exist by location; the headquarters in Mountain View is approximately $56.73 per hour, Seattle around $50.

NVIDIA in the U.S. pays approximately ¥2,106 per day on average, which equates to $39 per hour. However, NVIDIA’s official job descriptions have a wide range: for bachelor’s degree SWE roles, the hourly rate ranges from $20 to $71; for PhD research positions, it ranges from $30 to $94. If you hold a PhD, the upper limit of $94 per hour could push your daily earnings above $5,000.

Non-technical intern at OpenAI, daily salary approximately 1,944 RMB. GTM strategy intern, hourly wage of only $36, roughly 60% of the hourly rate for technical interns, yet still among the second tier in the tech industry.

Have you noticed? A regular tech intern at a major U.S. company can earn in a week what many white-collar professionals in China make in a month.

After discussing the United States, let’s look at the domestic situation.

China's tech giants have begun rapidly closing the gap with U.S. AI giants in their investments in top talent.

ByteDance Top Seed Research Internship Program, daily rate of 2,000 RMB.

Yes, you read that right—2,000 yuan per day is comparable to the monthly salary of the average person.

The media reported the exact words as: “Compared to DeepSeek’s internship wage of 500 yuan per day, ByteDance raised the standard to 2,000 yuan per day.” This figure was subsequently confirmed repeatedly by more internet media outlets. At 20 working days per month, this amounts to a monthly salary of 40,000 yuan.

This project is seeking top-tier master’s and PhD students. Once onboard, you can define your own research topics and enjoy the same privileges as full-time employees. The mentor team includes Wu Yonghui, who was recently recruited in February 2025 from Google DeepMind as Vice President of Research.

Someone put it plainly: the standard daily rate for ordinary interns at ByteDance is 500 yuan, “excluding high-end talent programs like JinDouYun and TopSeed, whose compensation is generally higher.”

Xiaomi top internship - large model training framework, daily salary of 500 to 1000 yuan; Agent Researcher - MiMo, daily salary of 1000 to 1100 yuan.

The job posting on the recruitment website is primarily aimed at master’s degree candidates and involves participating in the development of trillion-parameter large model training engines, agent research, and more.

In comparison, Xiaomi’s general large model algorithm interns earn only 300 to 400 yuan per day—more than double the difference within the same company.

This is the current state of China’s AI industry: regular positions still follow market rates, but if you’re a “top-tier talent,” money is no object.

What was the actual salary most AI interns received, as opposed to the few top performers mentioned above?

Odaily Planet Daily highlights several of the most popular current "AI representative companies."

DeepSeek (Hangzhou DeepSeek), a general-purpose AGI large model intern, earns a daily salary of 500 to 1,000 yuan. This figure has been confirmed by numerous media reports and is publicly listed on DeepSeek’s recruitment platform. Interns from outside the city receive an additional 3,000 yuan monthly housing allowance. Calculated over 22 days, the monthly salary ranges from 11,000 to 22,000 yuan.

By the way, full-time deep learning researchers at DeepSeek earn a monthly salary of 80,000 to 110,000 RMB with a 14-salary structure, reaching a maximum annual income of 1.54 million RMB—there’s an order of magnitude difference between interns and full-time employees.

Additionally, the previously reported claim on social media that “DeepSeek Tsinghua Yao Class intern earns a pre-tax daily salary of 5,500 yuan” is clearly an extreme outlier—let’s set that aside for now and discuss it in more detail later.

ByteDance general R&D/algorithm interns earn a daily rate of 500 RMB. Starting January 1 of this year, ByteDance standardized the daily internship rate for all technical and product roles to 500 RMB, claiming it was “to increase talent investment, enhance compensation competitiveness, and boost equity incentives,” and “to ensure employee compensation and incentive returns remain ahead of industry benchmarks globally.”

Of course, following the standard practice of major internet companies, meals are provided for all three meals, there is housing allowance, and some AI positions can reach 550.

MiniMax, Multimodal/Algorithm Intern, daily rate of RMB 350 to 600 or more. Technical roles typically range from RMB 350 to 500; master’s degree SPs can reach over RMB 600. Operations and non-technical roles are around RMB 150 to 200. MiniMax has a startup-style incentive structure: nearly all employees hold equity, with almost everyone among the 385 staff receiving shares, so while cash compensation may not be the highest, total overall returns may still be competitive.

Developed by Alibaba's Qwen AI, daily pay ranges from 350 to 550 yuan. Bachelor’s degree: 350 yuan; Master’s degree: 400 yuan, plus a monthly housing allowance of 2,000 yuan. AI Agent development roles offer 450 to 600 yuan per day; AI research engineers earn 500 to 550 yuan per day. New hires relocating for the position also receive one week of complimentary accommodation.

NVIDIA China, Deep Learning Architecture/CUDA Intern, daily salary of 400 to 800 yuan. On job search platforms, regular testing positions only offer 250 to 300 yuan.

Kimi (Moonshot), Internship positions in Search & Recommendation Algorithms / RL: daily rate of RMB 400 to 450. Product operations roles: daily rate of RMB 250 to 350. Although Kimi experienced a significant boost after the launch of K3 and has been actively expanding externally and raising funds, intern compensation is relatively modest—however, the company has prepared a “Crossing Plan” for top talent from the Class of 2027, offering direct stock options. Additionally, over 90% of current job openings at the company offer monthly salaries above RMB 30,000, with an average硕士 salary exceeding RMB 44,000; overall compensation for full-time employees remains quite competitive.

Xiaomi's general large model algorithm intern, with a daily salary of 300 to 400 yuan. As mentioned earlier, this is a position that pays more than half of what “top-tier internships” offer, yet in today’s job market, it’s already considered exceptional.

Zhipu AI, Intern in Large Model Algorithm Framework, daily salary of RMB 200 to 300. This is the lowest cash compensation in this survey. But don’t rush to feel sorry—Zhipu employees hold over 51% of equity, with 452 out of 883 staff owning shares. At a market cap of HK$323.2 billion, core team members have a paper net worth exceeding RMB 100 million, while ordinary shareholders hold tens of millions. Less cash, more options—it all comes down to whether the intern is willing to eat the pie.

Here, we must specifically address the widely circulated claim of DeepSeek at 5,500 yuan per day.

The story originated from a tweet on X platform, in which the poster claimed, “A student from Tsinghua’s Yao Class posted an offer from DeepSeek with a pre-tax internship salary of 5,500 yuan.” The moment the news broke, the entire AI community erupted over this figure—calculating 22 working days a month, an intern could earn 120,000 yuan per month, or over 1.3 million yuan annually, placing them ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic globally.

However, based on publicly available online information and media reports, we conclude that: "DeepSeek has not provided official confirmation; this is merely an unofficial rumor circulating within the AI community about a top-tier special arrangement."

Therefore, we did not include this special case of 5,500 yuan per day in the rankings—it is displayed only for informational purposes. DeepSeek’s official public standard is 500 to 1,000 yuan per day, which is the reliable figure verified through cross-referenced sources.

Yes, there’s another point worth highlighting separately—DeepSeek implemented a “senior employee scoring system” to prevent new interns from receiving salaries so high that they surpass those of long-term employees; how much a new hire earns is determined by scores from senior staff. This also indirectly shows that while exceptional high salaries do exist in the AI industry, they are by no means the norm.

After reviewing the internship salary data from over a dozen AI companies, several insights stood out strongly.

First, the salary disparity in the AI industry is far more severe than imagined. On the same day, within the same industry, some earn $5,000 per day while others earn only $200—a 25-fold difference. Top talent and ordinary professionals live in entirely different worlds.

Second, the salary gap between major AI companies in the U.S. and China remains substantial. In the U.S., interns at major companies earn around $200 to $400 per day, while in China, entry-level positions pay between 350 and 550 yuan—six to eight times less. While exchange rates and cost-of-living differences play a role, people are dynamic, especially the younger generation.

Third, Chinese AI companies are aggressively closing the talent density gap with overseas giants through specialized programs. ByteDance’s Top Seed offering of 2,000 yuan per day is a clear signal that Chinese companies are willing to pay near-American rates for top-tier talent. However, this only applies to a very small number of individuals—most positions remain unchanged.

Fourth, cash is only part of the picture—options are the real highlight. Zhipu has the lowest cash but the highest equity stake, MiniMax is close to full employee ownership, and Kimi uses options to retain talent. In an industry like AI, where the next company could instantly reach a $10 billion or even $100 billion valuation, the value of options could exceed a year’s salary.

Do you remember how much you earned per day during your internship? If it was 200 per day, don’t be discouraged—Zhipu’s interns also start at 200, even though they might hold stock options worth millions. If it was 500, don’t get complacent—ByteDance’s regular intern roles also pay 500 per day, but interns in the Top Seed program are already earning four times that amount…

In the current high-speed booming industry of AI, wealth-creating miracles are abundant, but what is most lacking are those who can repeatedly create such miracles.

Which company's intern daily wage data surprised you the most? Or do you know any other real-life examples? Share your insights!