French AI firm AMI, co-founded by Yann LeCun, raises $1 billion from investors including Toyota and Nvidia to develop AI that understands the physical world.
PARIS: French artificial intelligence startup AMI announced on Tuesday it has raised USD 1 billion in its first funding round to develop models capable of understanding the physical world.
The Paris-based company, co-founded by Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, attracted investment from five funds and major groups including Toyota, Nvidia and Samsung.
Notable tech figures such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also participated in the funding round.
LeCun told AFP that with the round complete, AMI would hire 20 to 30 people in the very short term.
He and his five co-founders now plan to shift into a higher gear on developing world models, which are AI systems designed to comprehend the physical environment.
Unlike the text-based large language models behind chatbots, these AIs should understand the world in the way animals and humans do, LeCun added.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the development on social media, stating Yann LeCun is turning a new page in artificial intelligence.
Based in Paris with offices in New York, Singapore and Montreal, AMI was valued at around USD 3.5 billion before this latest funding injection.
LeCun announced his departure from Meta in November after 12 years with the social media giant.
He now serves as AMI’s non-executive chairman, while Alexandre Lebrun acts as the startup’s Paris-based CEO.
The company aims to produce fairly universal intelligent systems within three to five years for tasks like autonomous driving and robotics.
LeCun told AFP he is very clearly in the camp that believes we need a paradigm shift from the current AI reliance on large language models.
His vocal criticism of the industry’s laser focus on LLMs was one reason for his departure from Meta, though he insists he still has a good relationship with Mark Zuckerberg.
AMI’s work will continue LeCun’s research at Meta on a new AI architecture dubbed JEPA.
Researchers hope these world models will allow AI to analyse and predict the behaviour of complex systems like jet engines or human organs.
LeCun, who remains a computer science professor at New York University, said AMI would focus on research and development in its first year.
He added that discussions with corporate partners could be held within six to 12 months.
 The Sun Malaysia
