French artificial intelligence start-up AMI (Advanced Machine Intelligence), co-founded by former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, has announced a $1 billion funding round aimed at developing systems capable of understanding the physical world. The investment was provided by five funds and attracted backing from major technology and industrial groups, including Toyota, Nvidia and Samsung. Several prominent figures in the technology sector, such as former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also participated in the round.
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LeCun said the funding would allow the company to recruit between 20 and 30 staff members in the near term as it accelerates work on so-called “world models”. These systems are intended to move beyond text-based large language models used in chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini, with the goal of enabling artificial intelligence to interpret the world in a way more similar to animals and humans. French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the announcement on social media, describing the initiative as a significant step for French innovation.
Headquartered in Paris, with additional offices in New York, Singapore and Montreal, AMI had been valued at around $3.5 billion prior to the funding round. LeCun left Meta in November after 12 years with the company and now serves as AMI’s non-executive chairman, while Alexandre Lebrun leads the start-up as chief executive. The founders aim to advance the development of broadly capable intelligent systems that could eventually be applied across sectors including robotics and autonomous driving.
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According to LeCun, the company’s research continues work begun during his time at Meta on a new architecture known as JEPA. Researchers believe that “world models” could enable AI systems to analyse and predict the behaviour of complex systems, such as aircraft engines, energy facilities or even human organs. During its first year, AMI intends to focus primarily on research and development, with potential discussions with corporate partners expected within six to twelve months.
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