$1 billion! NVIDIA and AMD continue to heavily invest in "Physical AI".

Recently, World Labs, a US-based world model unicorn founded by Stanford University professor and "Godmother of AI" Fei-Fei Li, announced the completion of a new round of $1 billion in financing, equivalent to approximately 6.91 billion yuan. Notably, renowned CAD manufacturer Autodesk invested $200 million alone, equivalent to 1.38 billion yuan, with tech giants like NVIDIA and AMD, along with several investment institutions, participating in the round. This significant news has once again thrust the fields of spatial intelligence, physical AI, and world models into the capital spotlight. Amid this global tech wave, the investment value of 51World (6651.HK), a pioneer in China's physical AI sector, is becoming increasingly prominent.

As a core strategic move by Fei-Fei Li in the AI field, the funding fervor for World Labs essentially represents capital's firm bet on the trend of "AI moving from digital symbols to the physical world." For a long time, mainstream AI models have been largely confined to digital domains like text and images. While they can achieve precise semantic understanding and generation, they cannot grasp the fundamental laws of the physical world. As the industry says, such AI is "eloquent but helpless." The emergence of world models aims to bridge this gap. Simply put, a world model enables AI to build an understanding of the three-dimensional physical world, simulating spatial relationships and physical laws to achieve precise mapping between the digital and physical realms, with spatial intelligence and physical AI serving as its core pillars.

Spatial intelligence is the foundation of world models, with the core goal of enabling AI to perceive and understand three-dimensional space. Similar to the survival instincts formed through biological evolution, it can predict object trajectories and recognize spatial layouts. Physical AI acts as the bridge connecting the digital and physical worlds. Unlike traditional digital AI, it can simulate physical properties like gravity and friction, achieving a "perception-prediction-action" closed loop, transforming AI from a "theorist" into a "practitioner." World Labs' first product, Marble, which can generate 3D worlds based on image or text prompts, is a practical embodiment of this technological logic. With the newly raised funds, World Labs will focus on enhancing the product's application capabilities in areas like robotics and scientific discovery, further expanding its commercial application scenarios.

Autodesk's substantial investment further reveals the industrial application logic of world models. As a CAD software giant in architecture and engineering, Autodesk needs to streamline the entire process from "design-simulation-implementation." World Labs' world model technology can deeply integrate with Autodesk's 3D design tools, automating and simplifying modeling workflows, thereby redefining creative paradigms in industries like architecture and engineering. This also signifies that world models are no longer just technical concepts in labs but have entered the stage of industrial application, with the commercial value of spatial intelligence and physical AI being gradually tapped by tech giants.

As China's first physical AI company to go public, 51World, with its self-developed core products like 51Aes (digital twin platform), 51Sim (intelligent driving simulation platform), and 51Earth (digital earth platform), has long been deeply engaged in spatial intelligence, digital twins, and physical AI. With the vision of "cloning the Earth," it has established a full-chain physical AI closed-loop ecosystem encompassing "synthetic data - spatial intelligence models - simulation training platforms," resonating with World Labs' technological strategy.

Notably, 51World has been officially included in the Hang Seng Composite Index. Thanks to its hard-tech attributes and core technological barriers, it has gained widespread recognition in both domestic and international capital markets. As the world model track led by World Labs continues to heat up, physical AI, as a core growth driver for AI in the next decade, will see its market space continuously expand. 51World's accumulated technical advantages from years of industry focus, rich industrial application experience, and comprehensive business ecosystem give it significant competitiveness in both the domestic and global markets.

World Labs' $1 billion financing round not only rewrites the valuation logic for AI startups but also signals the accelerated arrival of the era of spatial intelligence and physical AI. For investors, 51World, as a benchmark enterprise in China's physical AI sector, aligns with global tech trends, possesses a clear industrial application path and long-term growth potential, making it undoubtedly a core target for capturing this tech opportunity. Its investment value is expected to be continuously released during the industry's explosive growth phase.