AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li's startup World Labs raises $1 billion

"World Labs, a startup from artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a new round of funding to pursue a novel approach to AI development. Autodesk Inc. invested $200 million in World Labs as part of the round. Other backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., World Labs said in a blog post Wednesday."

"World Labs is one of a growing number of AI developers focusing on so-called world models, which are meant to navigate and make decisions about the three-dimensional world. Yann LeCun's world models startup, AMI Labs, has also attracted significant interest from investors. Late last year, World Labs launched its first product, Marble, which it describes as a model that can create 3D worlds from image or text prompts."

World Labs secured $1 billion in new funding to advance world-model artificial intelligence that navigates and makes decisions in three-dimensional spaces. Autodesk contributed $200 million, and other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia and AMD. The startup's Marble product can generate 3D worlds from image or text prompts. The funding will support work on robotics, scientific discovery and other applications of world models. Founder Fei-Fei Li's prior involvement with ImageNet supported breakthroughs in image recognition. The company did not disclose a valuation, though previous reporting indicated funding talks at about a $5 billion valuation.

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