WSJ reports Silicon Valley startups are receiving a surge in free compute and
token credits as AI model vendors compete for new enterprise clients. Cursor,
the AI coding firm acquired by SpaceX, offered a 75% discount through July 5.
OpenAI and Anthropic sales teams are presenting highly generous terms. Some
founders say fundraising has been delayed and they can negotiate between AI
vendors. Combined cloud and token credits from some providers can exceed $3m,
roughly the median US seed round. Google Cloud is granting select startups up to
$500k in cloud credits plus early access to Gemini; Microsoft and AWS are
offering similar packages. Vendors are pushing such deals to lock in early
customers and secure durable revenue while facing competition from increasingly
capable free and lower-cost models.
