World Labs, founded by Fei-Fei Li, has raised $1 billion in new financing to develop artificial-intelligence systems that understand and act within three-dimensional environments. Autodesk contributed $200 million, while Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices also joined the round. The company did not disclose its valuation, though earlier discussions reportedly centered on $5 billion. World Labs belongs to a rising group developing “world models,” software designed to interpret and make decisions in physical space, an approach also attracting attention through efforts linked to Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs.
The company introduced its first system, Marble, in 2025, describing it as “a model that can create 3D worlds from image or text prompts.” The fresh capital will expand uses in robotics and scientific research. Li’s earlier academic contribution, ImageNet, helped shape modern object-recognition methods and set the stage for today’s image-understanding systems. By focusing on simulation and spatial reasoning, World Labs aims to move AI beyond pattern recognition toward interaction with real environments.
