On February 18, 2026, World Labs, the startup founded by AI "godmother" Fei‑Fei Li, officially announced the completion of a new $1 billion funding round. The round was led by design software giant Autodesk with a $200 million investment, and was joined by NVIDIA, AMD, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Emerson Collective, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Sea Limited among other top institutions and companies. World Labs said on its official blog that the funds will accelerate its research and deployment of "spatial intelligence" and "world models."
World Labs was founded in April 2024 and came out of stealth in September of the same year, completing an early $230 million financing at that time with an estimated valuation of about $1 billion. After this $1 billion round, the company has not formally disclosed a post‑money valuation, but market reports previously suggested a target valuation around $5 billion. This financing makes World Labs one of the most closely watched AI unicorns at the start of 2026 and further consolidates Fei‑Fei Li's leading position in the spatial intelligence track.
Core mission: enabling AI to truly perceive and interact with the 3D physical world
World Labs' core vision is to build the next‑generation "world models"—AI systems capable of perceiving, generating and deeply interacting with the three‑dimensional physical world. Unlike mainstream large models that primarily handle two‑dimensional images or text, World Labs focuses on enabling AI to understand spatial relationships, physical laws and 3D dynamics in a human‑like way.
In the funding announcement Fei‑Fei Li said: "For a long time, Autodesk has helped people think spatially and solve real‑world problems. Our shared goal is to build Physical AI, augment human creativity, and put more powerful tools in the hands of designers, builders and creators."
In addition to investing $200 million, Autodesk will act as a strategic advisor to World Labs, and the two parties will engage in deep collaboration at the research and model levels. The partnership is seen as a powerful alliance between a software design leader and a pioneer in spatial AI, with the potential to rapidly apply World Labs' technologies to architecture, manufacturing, robotics, AR/VR and other fields.
High‑profile investor lineup, chip and design giants join
The investor roster for this round is impressive:
- Autodesk: lead investor with $200 million, strategic partner
- NVIDIA: chip giant, providing compute support
- AMD: another major chipmaker, jointly promoting optimization of spatial computing hardware
- a16z: well‑known venture firm, previously participated in early rounds
- Emerson Collective, Fidelity, Sea Limited and other institutions
Many outlets noted that the round reflects strong capital enthusiasm for the "spatial intelligence" track. World Labs' technical path is seen as a key step in AI's evolution from "language/image understanding" to "physical‑world understanding," with potential broad applications in robot autonomy, digital twins, autonomous driving simulation and immersive design.
Fei‑Fei Li's ambition for spatial intelligence
Fei‑Fei Li is renowned as the "godmother of AI" for her pioneering contributions to the ImageNet project. After leaving Stanford, she founded World Labs to focus on the spatial intelligence direction she has long advocated. She believes current AI still lacks a deep understanding of the real 3D world, which is a necessary path toward artificial general intelligence (AGI).
World Labs released its first product prototype in 2025, demonstrating AI perception and interaction capabilities in complex 3D scenes. The $1 billion financing will mainly be used to expand the team, strengthen compute infrastructure, and accelerate industry partnerships.
Industry significance: a turning point as AI moves from 2D to 3D
The financing further highlights the industry's shift from "language large models" to "world models." Companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic are also pursuing similar directions, but World Labs' focus on spatial intelligence forms a distinct technical route.
For the broader AI ecosystem, the round signals increased investor confidence in Physical AI and Embodied AI. In the future, robotics, autonomous driving, the metaverse and industrial simulation are expected to benefit. The Chinese AI community is closely watching these developments, and Fei‑Fei Li's success as a Chinese‑American scientist further inspires Chinese AI talent worldwide.
Conclusion
With $1 billion in new funding, World Labs has entered a new stage. This milestone is not only an important marker in Fei‑Fei Li's entrepreneurial journey, but also a key step for the AI industry to move from "understanding language" to "understanding the world." As spatial intelligence matures, AI will move beyond screens and into the physical world, empowering limitless possibilities in design, manufacturing and exploration.
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