LeCun’s New AI Venture AMI Labs Secures $1.03 Billion in Funding
PARIS – Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), the artificial intelligence startup co-founded by former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, announced Tuesday it has raised $1.03 billion to develop AI systems capable of understanding the physical world, a departure from the current focus on text-based large language models.
The funding round, led by five investment funds, drew significant investment from global tech giants including Toyota, Nvidia, and Samsung, alongside prominent figures like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“We need a paradigm shift,” LeCun told AFP, articulating a long-held critique of the industry’s current reliance on LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini. He believes the future of AI lies in systems that perceive and interact with the world in a manner akin to humans and animals.
The substantial investment will allow AMI to rapidly expand its team, with plans to hire 20-30 people “in the very short term,” according to LeCun. The company, currently based in Paris with offices in New York, Singapore, and Montreal, was valued at $3.5 billion prior to this funding round.
AMI’s work builds directly on LeCun’s research at Meta, specifically a new AI architecture known as JEPA. He left Meta in November after 12 years to pursue this vision independently, now serving as AMI’s non-executive chairman, while Alexandre Lebrun leads the company as CEO.
The ambition is to create “fairly universal intelligent systems” within three to five years, applicable to a wide range of tasks including autonomous driving and robotics. Researchers envision these “world models” being able to analyze and predict complex systems, from jet engines to the human body.
The French government has lauded the development. President Emmanuel Macron posted on X (formerly Twitter), praising LeCun’s work and celebrating France’s role in AI innovation.
LeCun, a dual French-American citizen and professor at New York University, emphasized that the initial focus will be on research and development, with discussions regarding corporate partnerships anticipated within six to twelve months.
(France 24 with AFP)
