Yann LeCun launched Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI Labs) with a record $1.03B seed round at a $3.5B pre-money valuation, aiming to build AI models that understand the physical world through world models rather than just language prediction. The startup, based in Europe with locations in Paris and Zürich, is framed as a major milestone for European AI and backed by a prominent founding team including Alex Lebrun, Saining Xie, and Pascale Fung.

The mission is described as a "long-term scientific endeavor" to create AI that "perceives, learns, reasons and acts" in the real world.