Revealing the Daily Salaries of Interns at AI Giants: Anthropic Over 5000 Yuan, Kimi Only Ranks Fourth

Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author | Wenser ( @wenser2010 )

In 2026, the "fundamentals" of internship salaries for domestic university students show that the median monthly salary is 5000 Yuan. If in a first-tier city and in a technical position, it can reach 10,000 Yuan.

Having accepted the era's dividends and the wrong choice of major early on, I wasn't too envious until I stumbled upon------

An intern at a certain AI company earns over 5000 Yuan a day... a day? 5000?

It's hard to bear. I casually checked the daily salaries of interns at 12 global AI giants, from OpenAI and Anthropic to ByteDance and DeepSeek, cross-referencing from official recruitment pages to levels.fyi, Glassdoor, and employee leaks on domestic social media.

I found that such high salaries are not unique to just one company. One can only say: the talent war in the AI industry has entered a heated stage.

Next, I ranked the domestic and international AI giants from the most popular to the less popular (there's no "pull" level) which may completely overturn your impression of the term "intern".

Ceiling: This is not an intern, but a prestigious AI researcher

First, let's look at the top two "heavenly positions", where the daily salary exceeds 5000 Yuan.

First place, OpenAI Residency, daily salary approximately 5625 Yuan.

Monthly salary of 18,333 USD, equivalent to over 120,000 Yuan. This is stated on OpenAI's official website, marked clearly on multilingual pages, indisputable.

This is a 6-month full-time research project, where interns are directly assigned to core teams in large models, reinforcement learning, alignment, and safety, working alongside full-time researchers. After the project ends, they can transition to full-time positions.

In other words, this is OpenAI's "genius youth reserve", cultivating future pillars in the AI field, contributing to the AGI cause. In terms of office environment, they work directly at OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters, required to be on-site at least 3 days a week, with compensation nearly equivalent to that of internal researchers at OpenAI.

Of course, these researchers are all top-tier "elite students". Recently, OpenAI also launched a short-term "safety intern" training program similar to Anthropic's top intern program, scheduled to open from September 14, 2026, to February 5, 2027.

Second place, Anthropic AI Safety Fellows, daily salary approximately 5198 Yuan.

Weekly salary of 3850 USD, clearly stated on Anthropic's official website and alignment blog, making it the most credible data in this survey.

A 4-month project, working 40 hours a week. In addition to the salary, each person receives an additional 15,000 USD per month for computing expenses------Yes, you read that right, it's computing expenses, 15,000 USD a month, however you want to spend it. This is also considered a special benefit of AI giants, achieving "Token freedom" in stages.

What level are the first batch of students? Over 80% published papers, and over 40% transitioned to full-time positions. Even more outrageous is the salary increase: the first batch's weekly salary in 2024 was only 2100 USD, and by 2026 it jumped to 3850, an increase of over 80% in two years. The scarcity of real AI talent is evident from this increase.

These two positions share a common point: extremely high thresholds, very few spots, essentially "pre-recruitment"------under the guise of interns, they are actually vying for future top researchers.

Explosive: Interns at American Giants Earn More Weekly Than Many Monthly Salaries

After looking at the ceiling, let's examine the regular interns at American giants. Note, these are "regular", not special talent programs.

Meta, daily salary approximately 3780 Yuan. Hourly wage of 70 USD, corroborated by both levels.fyi and Glassdoor, one reports 70, the other reports between 56 and 82 (average 67), not much difference. The official JD states a monthly salary range of 7188 to 12134 USD, plus about 2600 USD in housing allowance each month.

Google, daily salary approximately 3400 Yuan. Hourly wage of 62.98 USD, with undergraduate positions offering annual salaries equivalent to 92,000 to 122,000 USD, and doctoral positions 113,000 to 150,000. There are regional differences, with Mountain View headquarters around 56.73 USD per hour, and Seattle about 50.

NVIDIA USA, daily salary approximately 2106 Yuan. This is the average, with an hourly wage of 39 USD, but NVIDIA's official JD has a wide range, with undergraduate SWE from 20 to 71 USD, and doctoral research positions from 30 to 94 USD------if you are a PhD, the hourly wage cap is 94 USD, and the daily salary can exceed 5000.

OpenAI non-technical intern, daily salary approximately 1944 Yuan. GTM strategy intern, with an hourly wage of only 36 USD, which is only about 60% of the hourly wage of technical interns, but still belongs to the second tier in the tech field.

Did you notice? As a regular technical intern at an American giant, the money earned in a week may exceed the monthly salary of many white-collar elites in China.

Top-tier Level: Domestic Tech Giants Catching Up, ByteDance Offers 2000 Yuan a Day

After discussing the U.S., let's look at domestic companies.

Chinese tech giants' investments in top talent have begun to rapidly align with American AI giants.

ByteDance Top Seed Research Intern Program, daily salary 2000 Yuan.

Yes, you read that right, 2000 Yuan a day, which is not far behind the monthly salary of the "general public".

The media reported: "Compared to DeepSeek's offer of 500 Yuan a day for interns, ByteDance has raised the standard to 2000 Yuan a day." This figure has since been repeatedly confirmed by more internet media. Calculating based on 20 working days a month, the monthly salary is 40,000 Yuan.

What kind of people is this project recruiting? Top master's and doctoral students. Once in, they can set their own research topics, with the same permissions as full-time employees, and the mentor lineup includes Wu Yonghui, the vice president of research who was just poached from Google DeepMind in February 2025.

Some have stated bluntly: the unified standard of 500 Yuan a day for ordinary interns at ByteDance "does not include high-end talent programs like JinDouYun and TopSeed, where salaries are generally higher."

Xiaomi's top intern - large model training framework, daily salary 500 to 1000 Yuan; intelligent agent researcher - MiMo, daily salary 1000-1100 Yuan.

The positions listed on recruitment websites mainly target master's students, with work content involving the development of large model training engines with hundreds of billions of parameters, intelligent agent research, etc.

In comparison, Xiaomi's ordinary large model algorithm interns only earn 300 to 400 Yuan a day------within the same company, there's a difference of more than double.

This is the current state of the domestic AI industry: ordinary positions still follow market prices, but as long as you are a "top talent", money is not an issue.

NPC Level: The "AI Four Little Dragons" with Unlimited Opportunities, Kimi and Zhipu Still Striving

What has been mentioned above is the game of a few elites. What is the actual salary level for the vast majority of AI interns?

Odaily Planet Daily highlights a few of the hottest "representative AI companies" currently.

DeepSeek (Hangzhou Deep Exploration), ordinary AGI large model intern, daily salary 500 to 1000 Yuan. This figure has been confirmed by various media reports and is also publicly available on DeepSeek's recruitment platform. Out-of-town interns receive an additional 3000 Yuan for housing each month. Based on 22 days, the monthly salary ranges from 11,000 to 22,000 Yuan.

By the way, DeepSeek's formal employees, deep learning researchers, earn a monthly salary between 80,000 to 110,000 Yuan, with a 14-month salary structure, and the highest annual salary reaching 1.54 million------there's a magnitude of difference between interns and full-time employees.

Additionally, the previously leaked information on social media about "DeepSeek Tsinghua Yao Class intern pre-tax daily salary of 5500 Yuan" is clearly an extreme case of a rare individual, and we won't discuss it further for now.

ByteDance ordinary R&D/algorithm intern, daily salary 500 Yuan. Starting from January 1 of this year, ByteDance unified the daily salary for interns in technical and product positions to 500 Yuan, claiming it was to "increase talent investment, enhance salary competitiveness, and improve stock option incentives," "to ensure employee salary competitiveness and incentive returns lead the top levels in global markets."

Of course, the usual practice of internet giants also includes three meals a day, housing allowances, and some AI positions can reach 550.

MiniMax, multi-modal/algorithm intern, daily salary 350 to 600 Yuan or more. Technical positions generally earn 350 to 500, with master's SP reaching over 600; operations and non-technical positions only earn 150 to 200. MiniMax has a characteristic of a startup incentive: nearly all employees hold shares, so despite cash not being the highest, the overall benefits may not be bad.

Alibaba Qianwen AI R&D, daily salary 350 to 550 Yuan. Undergraduates earn 350, master's 400, plus an additional 2000 Yuan for housing each month; AI Agent development positions can reach 450 to 600, and AI R&D engineers 500 to 550. There are also arrangements for a week of free accommodation for out-of-town hires.

NVIDIA China, deep learning architecture/CUDA intern, daily salary 400 to 800 Yuan. The positions listed on recruitment websites for ordinary testing roles only earn 250 to 300.

Kimi (Dark Side of the Moon), search push algorithm/RL intern position, daily salary 400 to 450 Yuan. Product operation positions earn between 250 to 350. Although Kimi has been thriving after the release of K3, with external development and company financing going smoothly, the intern salary is indeed not high------but they also prepared a "crossing plan" for top talents from the 27th batch, directly issuing stock options. Additionally, over 90% of the positions they are hiring for have monthly salaries above 30,000 Yuan, with an average salary for master's graduates exceeding 44,000 Yuan, so the treatment for full-time employees is relatively good.

Xiaomi ordinary large model algorithm intern, daily salary 300 to 400 Yuan. This is the position mentioned earlier, which is more than double the "top intern" salary, but in the current job market, it is already considered a top-tier level.

Zhipu AI, large model algorithm framework intern, daily salary 200 to 300 Yuan. Cash salary is the lowest tier in this survey. But don't rush to feel sorry------Zhipu's employee stock ownership ratio exceeds 51%, with 452 out of 883 people holding shares. When the market value was 323.2 billion HKD, core employees had net worth exceeding 100 million, and ordinary employees also had tens of millions. Low cash, but high options, it depends on whether the interns are willing to take the risk.

The Truth Behind DeepSeek's 5500 Yuan Daily Salary for Interns: Don't Mistake Geniuses for Turnips

Here, we must specifically discuss the widely circulated DeepSeek 5500 Yuan/day.

The story originated from a tweet on platform X, where the blogger claimed "a Tsinghua Yao Class student revealed a DeepSeek offer with a pre-tax internship salary of 5500 Yuan." Once the news broke, the entire AI circle was stirred by this number------based on 22 working days, an intern could earn a monthly salary of 120,000 Yuan, an annual salary exceeding 1.3 million, ranking ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic globally.

However, based on comprehensive public information and media reports, we conclude: "DeepSeek has not provided official confirmation, this is merely a privately circulated exceptional treatment within the AI circle."

Therefore, we did not include this 5500 Yuan daily salary exception in the ranking, only as a side note. The official standard publicly stated by DeepSeek is 500 to 1000 Yuan a day, which is the reliable figure verified through cross-referencing.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that------DeepSeek has implemented an "old employee scoring system" to prevent top interns from receiving excessively high salaries, which could lead to salary discrepancies with older employees. This also indirectly indicates that high salary exceptions do exist in the AI industry, but they are certainly not the norm.

More Truths

After reviewing the salary data of interns from these more than ten AI companies, several feelings are particularly strong.

First, the salary "wealth gap" in the AI industry is far more severe than imagined. On the same day, in the same industry, some earn a daily salary of 5000, while others earn 200, a difference of 25 times. The gap between top talent and ordinary practitioners is completely two worlds.

Second, the salary gap between Chinese and American AI giants remains enormous. Ordinary interns at American giants earn a daily salary of around 2000 to nearly 4000 Yuan, while ordinary positions in Chinese giants range from 350 to 550, a difference of 6 to 8 times. This includes the impact of exchange rates and differences in living costs, but people are living beings, especially young people.

Third, Chinese AI companies are desperately trying to catch up with the talent density of overseas giants through "special programs". ByteDance's 2000 Yuan a day for Top Seed is a clear signal------for top talent, Chinese companies are willing to offer prices close to those in the U.S. But this only covers a very small number of people, while most positions remain the same.

Fourth, cash is just one part; stock options are the real main event. Zhipu has the lowest cash but the highest stock ownership ratio, MiniMax is close to full employee ownership, and Kimi issues stock options to retain talent. In the AI industry, where the next billion or even trillion-dollar company could emerge at any moment, the value of stock options may surpass an entire year's salary.

Do you remember how much your daily salary was during your internship? If it was 200 a day, don't be discouraged; Zhipu's interns also start at 200, although they might hold stock options worth millions. If it was 500, don't be too proud; ByteDance's ordinary intern salary is also 500, but the Top Seed program interns' compensation has already quadrupled......

The rapidly advancing AI industry is full of wealth creation miracles, but what it lacks are those who can create miracles time and again.

Which company's intern salary data surprised you the most? Or do you know any real cases? Feel free to share!