Euronews reports million‑dollar AI pay

Euronews and Dartmouth College described two very different parts of the AI labor market this week. Euronews reported on May 21 that top AI researchers and engineering leaders are commanding million-dollar salaries and large equity packages as companies including OpenAI, Meta, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, xAI and Safe Superintelligence compete for a small pool of frontier talent. Dartmouth, in a separate effort, has raised $30 million to fund internships and career support for undergraduates as colleges respond to concern that AI is shrinking some entry-level white-collar work. The two developments were published a day apart and point to a labor market in which the highest-end technical talent is scarce while institutions broaden support for students trying to enter a changing job market. ### Who is getting paid at the top of the AI market? Euronews said there may be only a few hundred people capable of building frontier AI systems at scale, a scarcity that has fueled recruiting fights across major labs and startups. The report said compensation discussions in the past two years have included nine-figure packages, large equity grants and direct recruiting by chief executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman. (euronews.com) Ilya Sutskever featured prominently in the Euronews account. Euronews said Sutskever left OpenAI after the company’s 2023 governance crisis and co-founded Safe Superintelligence in 2024, and that the startup was privately valued at about $32 billion in 2025 despite not yet releasing a commercial product. ### Why are colleges talking about internships at the same time? (euronews.com) TheStreet reported on May 21 that Dartmouth is using a $30 million internship endowment to help students remain employable as AI changes hiring patterns. The report said Dartmouth’s strategy centers on real-world work experience and career coaching, particularly as entry-level positions in technology, finance and other white-collar fields come under pressure from automation tools. (euronews.com) Dartmouth’s own January 12 announcement gave more detail on the program. The college said endowed gifts totaling $30 million will support internship opportunities for all undergraduates by removing financial barriers tied to unpaid or underpaid work in fields including the arts, media, public service, government, global health and conservation. ### What does Dartmouth’s $30 million actually fund? (thestreet.com) Dartmouth said the new funding will support approximately 250 undergraduates each year, about five times more students than before. The college said the average internship award has risen to $4,675, more than 20% above the prior year, and students can receive as much as $6,500 in a single term. (home.dartmouth.edu) Joseph Catrino, the inaugural executive director of Dartmouth’s Center for Career Design, told CNBC, as quoted by TheStreet, that “higher education needs to do better” in preparing students for work. President Sian Leah Beilock said in Dartmouth’s January release that the school was giving students “more tools and diverse experiences to ensure their career success.” (home.dartmouth.edu) ### Which employers are driving the pay surge? Euronews named OpenAI, Meta, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, xAI, Safe Superintelligence and a growing group of AI startups as active bidders for top talent. The report said the market now rewards a narrow group of researchers and engineering leaders whose work is tied directly to frontier model development and scaling. (thestreet.com) TheStreet, by contrast, framed the pressure lower down the pipeline. It said new graduates are facing fewer entry-level openings in some office-based fields as employers adopt tools that can perform work once assigned to junior staff. ### What happens next? Dartmouth said the internship expansion was unlocked after 29 Dartmouth families met a December 31, 2025 challenge deadline and secured a full $15 million matching gift. (euronews.com) The college said the enlarged fund will now finance hundreds of student internships each year through the Center for Career Design, while the AI hiring contest described by Euronews continues among major labs and startups. (home.dartmouth.edu) (thestreet.com)