AI giant internship daily salary revealed: Anthropic exceeds 5,000 yuan, Kimi only ranks in the fourth tier

Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010 )

In 2026, the "baseline" for internship salaries among domestic college students is a median monthly salary of 5,000 RMB. If you're in a first-tier city and land a tech role, that figure can reach 10,000 RMB.

Having long accepted the hand dealt by the era and my own major selection, I wasn't particularly envious—until I scrolled past a post about an intern at some AI company earning over 5,000 RMB in a single day... A day? 5,000?

That stung. So, I did some digging myself, looking into the daily internship pay at 12 major AI companies worldwide—from OpenAI and Anthropic to ByteDance and DeepSeek—cross-referencing official job postings with salary aggregation sites like levels.fyi and Glassdoor (Note from Odaily Planet Daily: salary lookup websites, similar to a US version of Boss Zhipin combined with Maimai), as well as employee leaks on domestic social media.

Turns out, this isn't just one company paying top dollar. Suffice to say: The war for talent in the AI industry has entered a white-hot phase.

Below, I've mixed domestic and international AI giants and ranked them from "absolutely massive" to "moderately massive" (there's no "low" tier here), which might completely overturn your impression of the word "intern."

The Ceiling: These Aren't Just Interns; They're Privileged AI Researchers

First, let's look at the two most elite "dream roles," both with daily pay exceeding the 5,000 RMB mark.

First Place: OpenAI Residency, with a daily rate of approximately 5,625 RMB.

The monthly salary is $18,333, which translates to over 120,000 RMB. This is stated directly on OpenAI's official website across multiple language versions—no ambiguity there.

This is a 6-month, full-time research program. Participants are directly assigned to core teams working on large language models, reinforcement learning, alignment, and safety, collaborating with full-time researchers. Upon completion, there's potential to transition to a full-time role.

In essence, this is OpenAI's "genius preparatory program," cultivating the future pillars of the AI field, designed for those dedicated to advancing the cause of AGI. As for the work environment, you're based at OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters, required on-site at least 3 days a week, with待遇 nearly equivalent to OpenAI's internal research staff.

Of course, these researchers are the cream of the crop, selected from the best. Recently, OpenAI also launched a short-term "Safety Fellowship" program, similar to Anthropic's top intern initiative, scheduled to run from September 14, 2026, to February 5, 2027.

Second Place: Anthropic AI Safety Fellows, with a daily rate of approximately 5,198 RMB.

The weekly salary is $3,850, clearly listed on both the Anthropic official website and their official alignment blog—this is the most reliable data point in our research.

It's a 4-month program with a 40-hour work week. Beyond the salary, each fellow receives a $15,000 monthly computational budget—yes, you read that right: $15,000 a month for compute, to use however you see fit. This is a unique perk of major AI labs, effectively granting a stage of "Token Freedom."

What's the caliber of the first cohort? Over 80% have published papers, and more than 40% converted to full-time roles. What's even more staggering is the salary growth: the first cohort in 2024 earned $2,100 a week, but by 2026, that jumped to $3,850—an increase of over 80% in just two years. If you want a measure of how scarce true AI talent is, look no further than this growth rate.

These two roles share a common trait: Extremely high barriers to entry, very few slots, and they are essentially "pre-hiring"—using the guise of internships to secure the top researchers of the future.

Absolutely Massive: US Big Tech Interns Earn More Per Week Than Most People Earn Per Month

Having looked at the ceiling, let's examine standard internships at US tech giants. Note: these are "standard" internships, not any special talent programs.

Meta: approximately 3,780 RMB per day. At $70 an hour, this is corroborated by dual sources—levels.fyi and Glassdoor. One reports $70, the other ranges from $56 to $82 (average $67), so they align closely. The official job description lists a monthly salary range of $7,188 to $12,134, plus a housing stipend of around $2,600 per month.

Google: approximately 3,400 RMB per day. At $62.98 an hour, the annualized salary equivalent is $92,000 to $122,000 for undergraduate roles, and $113,000 to $150,000 for PhD roles. This varies by location—Mountain View is roughly $56.73 an hour, while Seattle is around $50.

NVIDIA (US): approximately 2,106 RMB per day. This is an average figure, with an hourly rate of $39. However, NVIDIA's official JD has a wide range: $20 to $71 per hour for undergraduate SWE roles, and $30 to $94 per hour for PhD research positions. If you're a PhD holder at the top of that range ($94/hour), your daily rate could exceed 5,000 RMB.

OpenAI Non-Technical Interns: approximately 1,944 RMB per day. For instance, a GTM Strategy Intern earns $36 an hour, which is only about 60% of what technical interns make, but it's still solidly in the second tier within the tech sector.

Notice the pattern? An average technical intern at a US big tech firm can earn more in a week than many white-collar professionals in China make in a month.

Top-Tier Tier: Chinese Tech Giants Are Catching Up, with ByteDance Offering 2,000 RMB a Day

Now, let's turn our attention to China.

Chinese tech giants are rapidly aligning their investment in top-tier talent with that of American AI leaders.

ByteDance's Top Seed Research Intern Special Program: 2,000 RMB per day.

Yes, you read that correctly—2,000 RMB a day, competitive with many people's monthly salary.

Media reports stated it bluntly: "Compared to DeepSeek's 500 RMB per day internship wage, ByteDance has raised the standard to 2,000 RMB per day." This figure has since been repeatedly confirmed by numerous internet media outlets. Based on 20 working days a month, that's a monthly salary of 40,000 RMB.

Who is this program targeting? Top-tier current master's and PhD students. Participants can define their own research topics, have permissions equal to full-time employees, and the mentorship roster includes Wu Yonghui, a Research VP poached from Google DeepMind in February 2025.

Some have put it plainly: ByteDance's standard rate of 500 RMB per day for regular interns "does not apply to elite talent programs like Jindouyun or TopSeed; these programs generally offer higher compensation."

Xiaomi's Top-Tier Internship in LLM Training Frameworks: 500 to 1,000 RMB per day; Agent Researcher (MiMo): 1,000-1,100 RMB per day.

These positions, listed on recruiting sites, primarily target master's students and involve work on developing training engines for hundred-billion-parameter LLMs, agent research, and more.

For comparison, Xiaomi's regular LLM algorithm interns earn only 300 to 400 RMB per day. That's more than a two-fold difference within the same company.

This is the current state of the domestic AI industry: Regular positions are priced at market rates, but if you're "top-tier talent," money is no object.

NPC Level: The "AI Tigers" with Unlimited Potential—Kimi, Zhipu, and Others Are Still Striving

Everything discussed above is a game for a select few. What's the actual take-home pay for the vast majority of AI interns?

Odaily Planet Daily has selected a few of the most prominent "representative AI companies" to illustrate this.

DeepSeek: Regular AGI LLM Interns earn 500 to 1,000 RMB per day. This figure has been corroborated by numerous media reports and is public information on DeepSeek's own recruitment platform. Out-of-town interns receive an additional 3,000 RMB monthly housing allowance. Based on 22 working days, this translates to a monthly salary between 11,000 and 22,000 RMB.

For context, DeepSeek's full-time deep learning researchers earn a monthly salary of 80,000 to 110,000 RMB, with 14 months of pay, putting the top annual salary at 1.54 million RMB—an order of magnitude difference between interns and full-time staff.

Also, the widely circulated social media post about a "DeepSeek intern from Tsinghua's Yao Class earning a pre-tax daily rate of 5,500 RMB" is clearly an extreme, one-in-a-million case. We'll leave that for a more detailed discussion later.

ByteDance Regular R&D/Algorithm Interns: 500 RMB per day. Starting January 1 this year, ByteDance unified the daily intern pay for its technical and product roles at 500 RMB, framed as "increasing investment in talent, enhancing salary competitiveness, and strengthening equity incentive intensity," aiming "to ensure our employees' compensation competitiveness and incentive returns lead the market at a top-tier level globally."

Of course, following the big tech tradition, they also cover three meals and offer housing subsidies. Some AI roles can reach 550 RMB per day.

MiniMax: Multimodal/Algorithm Interns earn 350 to over 600 RMB per day. Technical roles generally pay 350 to 500 RMB, with master's SP offers potentially exceeding 600 RMB. Operations and non-technical roles, however, only earn 150 to 200 RMB. MiniMax has a startup-specific incentive: nearly 100% employee ownership, with close to all 385 employees holding shares. So, while the cash component isn't the highest, the total compensation package isn't necessarily lacking.

Alibaba's Qwen AI R&D: 350 to 550 RMB per day. 350 RMB for undergraduates, 400 RMB for master's students, plus a 2,000 RMB monthly housing allowance. AI Agent development roles can reach 450 to 600 RMB, and AI R&D engineers earn 500 to 550 RMB. There's also a one-week free accommodation benefit for those relocating for the job.

NVIDIA China: Deep Learning Architecture/CUDA Interns earn 400 to 800 RMB per day. Regular testing positions listed on recruiting sites, however, only pay 250 to 300 RMB.

Kimi (Moonshot AI): Search Recommendation Algorithm/RL Intern roles earn 400 to 450 RMB per day. Product operations roles pay 250 to 350 RMB daily. While Kimi had a significant win with the release of their K3 model and has been quite successful in external partnerships and fundraising, their intern salaries aren't particularly high. However, they do have a "Crossing Program" for top talent from the class of 2027, which grants stock options directly. Moreover, over 90% of their open full-time positions offer monthly salaries above 30,000 RMB, with the average salary for master's degree holders exceeding 44,000 RMB, indicating relatively good compensation for full-time employees.

Xiaomi Regular LLM Algorithm Interns: 300 to 400 RMB per day. As mentioned earlier, this is the role that pays less than half of their "top-tier internship" rate, yet in the current job market, it's still considered a solidly good deal.

Zhipu AI: LLM Algorithm Framework Interns earn 200 to 300 RMB per day. This cash salary is the lowest tier in our entire survey. But hold your sympathy—Zhipu's employee ownership ratio exceeds 51%, with 452 out of 883 employees holding equity. At a market cap of 323.2 billion HKD, core骨干 members had paper wealth exceeding 100 million RMB, and even regular employees with shares had holdings in the tens of millions. Lower cash, compensated with options—whether interns bite depends on their appetite for the "pie" (potential future value).

The Truth Behind DeepSeek's 5,500 RMB Daily Intern Pay: Don't Mistake a Genius for a Commoner

At this point, we must specifically address the viral rumor about DeepSeek's 5,500 RMB/day pay.

The story originated from a tweet on X, where the user claimed, "A student from Tsinghua's Yao Class showed off a DeepSeek offer with a pre-tax intern salary of 5,500 RMB." The news sent ripples through the entire AI community—based on 22 working days, that would mean an intern earning 120,000 RMB per month, or over 1.3 million RMB annually, which would outpace even OpenAI and Anthropic on a global scale.

However, based on a synthesis of publicly available information and media reports, our conclusion is: "DeepSeek has never officially confirmed this; it appears to be an unverified anecdote circulating within the AI community about a top-tier exceptional case."

Therefore, we haven't included this 5,500 RMB/day special case in our ranking, treating it merely as an interesting anecdote. The official public standard from DeepSeek is 500 to 1,000 RMB per day—that's the reliable figure backed by cross-verified sources.

Yes, there's one more noteworthy point—to prevent top interns' salaries from eclipsing those of existing employees (a phenomenon known as salary inversion), DeepSeek has apparently implemented a "senior employee scoring system" where the pay for new hires is determined by scores from existing staff. This also indirectly highlights that high-salary exceptions do exist in the AI industry, but they are by no means the norm.

More Truths

After digging through the intern salary data for these dozen or so AI companies, a few strong impressions stand out.

First, the "wealth divide" in AI industry salaries is far more severe than imagined. On the same day, within the same industry, one person earns 5,000 RMB daily while another earns 200 RMB—a 25-fold difference. Top talent and average practitioners inhabit completely different worlds.

Second, the compensation gap between US and Chinese AI giants remains vast. Average interns at US big tech earn roughly 2,000 to nearly 4,000 RMB per day, while their counterparts in standard roles at Chinese giants earn 350 to 550 RMB—a 6 to 8-fold difference. Exchange rates