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

World Labs, a startup co-founded by artificial intelligence researcher Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a funding round announced on February 18, 2026.

The investors include AMD, Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Nvidia and Sea.

Credit: YiCaiGlobal

The company focuses on developing large world models that equip AI systems with spatial intelligence to perceive and reason about three-dimensional environments.

World Labs emerged from stealth in September 2024 after securing $230 million in initial funding.

The new capital supports acceleration of work on applications in robotics, scientific discovery, storytelling and creativity.

World Labs's debut product, Marble, generates high-fidelity, persistent 3D worlds from inputs like images, video or text.

Autodesk provided $200 million of the total and took on a strategic advisor position to collaborate with World Labs on incorporating world models into 3D design processes, with initial emphasis on entertainment sectors.

The joint effort combines Autodesk's background in geometry, physics simulation and industry-specific tools with World Labs' multimodal systems for creating and manipulating immersive spatial settings.

Fei-Fei Li, who serves as chief executive officer of World Labs and co-founded the company with Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner and Ben Mildenhall, provided a statement on the partnership.

“If AI is to be truly useful, it must understand worlds, not just words. Worlds are governed by geometry, physics, and dynamics, and reconciling the semantic, spatial, and physical is the next great frontier of AI," Li said.

"Autodesk has long helped people think spatially and solve real-world problems and, together, we share a clear purpose: building physical AI that augments human creativity and puts more powerful tools in the hands of designers, builders, and creators.” she added.

Fei-Fei Li previously directed AI research at Google Cloud and co-leads the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

The funding addresses needs in sectors facing capacity limits, such as infrastructure development, housing construction and manufacturing operations, where AI capable of handling physical realities can assist in design and building tasks.

World Labs maintains its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area.