AI Pioneer Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs Raises $1 Billion to Advance “Spatial Intelligence”

Feb 18 (GeokHub) — Fei-Fei Li’s startup World Labs has raised $1 billion in fresh funding, underscoring surging investor interest in next-generation artificial intelligence focused on “spatial intelligence.”

The company said the funding round included backing from major technology and investment players such as AMD, Nvidia, Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Sea Limited, among others.

Autodesk invested $200 million and will also serve as an adviser to the startup, signaling a strategic alignment between AI-driven spatial modeling and design software applications.

World Labs did not disclose its valuation. However, Bloomberg News reported last month that the company had been in funding talks at an estimated valuation of around $5 billion.

What Is Spatial Intelligence?

Spatial intelligence represents an emerging frontier in AI — enabling systems to understand, reason about, and interact with the three-dimensional physical world rather than relying solely on two-dimensional images or text.

World Labs is developing foundational AI models capable of perceiving, generating, and interacting with 3D environments. The company has described its “Marble” multimodal world model as able to create immersive 3D worlds from simple image or text prompts.

Li, widely known as the “godmother of AI,” previously raised $230 million in September 2024 to launch World Labs. She has said spatial intelligence models could power future advancements in augmented reality, virtual reality, robotics, and autonomous systems.

Race to Build “World Models”

World Labs joins other major players in developing so-called “world models” — AI systems designed to process real-world visual data and build advanced reasoning capabilities.

Google DeepMind has introduced its Genie family of models, which can generate and simulate interactive 3D environments. Meanwhile, Yann LeCun, formerly chief AI scientist at Meta Platforms, recently launched AMI Labs to pursue similar world-model research.

The funding round highlights intensifying competition among AI leaders to develop systems capable of understanding and operating within the physical world — a step many researchers see as critical to achieving more advanced, human-like reasoning in machines.