The ‘godmother of AI’ has a new startup already worth $1 billion

The ‘godmother of AI’ has a new startup already worth $1 billion

By Kylie Robison, a senior AI reporter working with The Verge's policy and tech teams. She previously worked at Fortune Magazine and Business Insider.

Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED

Fei-Fei Li, the renowned computer scientist known as the “godmother of AI,” has created a startup dubbed World Labs. In just four months, it’s already valued at more than $1 billion, the Financial Times reported.

World Labs hopes to use human-like processing of visual data to make AI capable of advanced reasoning, Reuters reported in May. The research to make it human-like, much like what ChatGPT is trying to do with generative AI, is still ongoing.

Li is best known for her contributions to computer vision, a branch of AI dedicated to helping machines interpret and comprehend visual information. She also spearheaded the development of ImageNet, an extensive visual database used for visual object recognition research. Li headed AI at Google Cloud from 2017 to 2018 and currently advises the White House task force on AI.

“[World Labs] is developing a model that understands the three-dimensional physical world; essentially the dimensions of objects, where things are and what they do,” an anonymous venture capitalist with knowledge of Li’s work told the Financial Times.

This could bolster work in various fields such as robotics, augmented reality, and virtual reality

The startup has had two funding rounds, the latest was about $100 million, and it’s backed by Andreessen Horowitz and the AI fund Radical Ventures (which Li joined as a partner last year). Li founded World Labs while on partial leave from Stanford, where she co-directs the university’s Human-Centered AI Institute.

In a Ted Talk in April, Li further explained the field of research her startup will work on advancing, which involves algorithms capable of realistically extrapolating images and text into three-dimensional environments and acting on those predictions, using a concept known as “spatial intelligence.” This could bolster work in various fields such as robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, and computer vision. If these capabilities continue to advance in the ambitious ways Li plans, it has the potential to transform industries like healthcare and manufacturing.

The investment in World Labs reflects a trend where venture capitalists eagerly align themselves with ambitious AI companies, spurred by the surprise success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which rapidly achieved a valuation exceeding $80 billion.