Fei-Fei Li's World Labs has secured $1 billion in funding to advance its work on spatial intelligence, a novel approach to artificial intelligence that enables machines to understand and interact with 3D environments. The funding round attracted major investors including chipmakers AMD and Nvidia, software firm Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Sea.

Autodesk invested $200 million and will serve as an adviser to the startup, while World Labs did not disclose its valuation. The funding comes after Bloomberg News reported in January that the company was seeking a valuation of about $5 billion. Spatial intelligence represents a shift from traditional AI that relies on 2D data, enabling systems to reason about how the 3D world works.

World Labs joins other prominent players like Google DeepMind and Yann LeCun's AMI Labs in developing so-called 'world models' that process visual data from physical environments. The technology has potential applications in augmented and virtual reality, as well as robotics. Li, widely known as the 'godmother of AI,' previously raised $230 million in September 2024 to launch World Labs, positioning the company at the forefront of next-generation AI development.