A lot of companies are donating computing power for COVID-19 research, so it's possible they have a deal of some kind worked out with Amazon.

> That is my biggest hurdle working at a university right now.

We took the opposite approach and assembled our own equipment, which we self host and manage. The cost savings we're significant, and what we lose doing admin and maintenance is saved by having the flexibility and freedom to code and run what we want, when we want.