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Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs Reaches Reported $1 Billion Valuation as 3D ‘Marble’ Launches

The Stanford scientist is pushing AI beyond language toward spatial intelligence.

Overview

  • World Labs’ valuation is reported at just over $1 billion, according to the Financial Times, as the startup rolls out its first commercial world-model product.
  • Marble converts text prompts, photos, videos, 3D layouts, and panoramas into editable, downloadable 3D environments and is offered in freemium and paid tiers.
  • Li frames world models as the next frontier for AI, focused on agents that perceive and interact with physical space rather than relying solely on language.
  • Her earlier ImageNet project created a massive labeled dataset and competition that helped trigger the deep-learning breakthrough in computer vision.
  • Li immigrated to the U.S. at 15 and ran her family’s New Jersey dry-cleaning shop for seven years, later rising to global advisory roles including a UN board seat and receiving the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.