Investors bet $1 billion on Yann LeCun's vision for AI beyond LLMs

Yann LeCun, former chief AI scientist at Meta and Turing Award winner, has raised over $1 billion for his new startup Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs) - making it Europe's largest seed funding round ever. Investors include Nvidia, Bezos Expeditions, Singapore's Temasek, and France's Cathay Innovation.

The company was valued at $3.5 billion before the funding round. Alexandre LeBrun, former head of French startup Nabla, serves as CEO, while LeCun will take the role of board chair. The company is launching with about a dozen employees spread across Paris, New York, Singapore, and Montreal.

AMI Labs aims to build so-called world models that understand the physical environment - with applications in areas like robotics and transportation. According to LeCun and LeBrun, today's language models aren't up to the task. Meta isn't an investor but is expected to partner with AMI Labs.