world-models

Tencent has released HY-World 2.0, an open-source multi-modal world model that generates navigable 3D environments from text prompts, single images, multi-view images, or video. The model produces editable 3D assets including meshes and 3D Gaussian Splattings that can be directly imported into game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman stated that GPT reasoning models have 'line of sight' to AGI and represents a settled debate on whether text-based models can achieve general intelligence. The company is prioritizing this approach over multimodal world models like Sora, which Brockman views as 'a different branch of the tech tree.' The stance contradicts prominent AI researchers including Yann LeCun and Demis Hassabis, who argue LLMs alone are insufficient for human-level intelligence.

AMI Labs, cofounded by Turing Prize winner Yann LeCun, has raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. The funding will support the company's effort to develop world models, marking a major commitment to foundational AI research outside of existing tech giants.

World Labs, the AI startup founded by Fei-Fei Li, has raised $1 billion in new funding to develop spatial intelligence—AI systems capable of understanding and operating in three-dimensional physical environments. The capital will fund the development of world models, a class of AI architecture designed to reason about spatial relationships and physical interactions.