The Next Frontier of AI Is Spatial Intelligence | Fei-Fei Li on a16z

Last week, World Labs announced its acquisition of SceniX, bringing together two teams working on one of AI's biggest unsolved problems: how to give machines a true understanding of the physical world. Martin Casado sits down with Fei-Fei Li, co-founder and CEO of World Labs, creator of ImageNet, and pioneer of spatial intelligence, alongside Yunzhu Li, co-founder of SceniX and assistant professor at Columbia University. They discuss why World Labs acquired SceniX, how simulation can unlock the next generation of robotics, and why training robots may require a fundamentally different approach than training language models. The conversation explores real-to-sim-to-real pipelines, world models, robotics foundation models, evaluation, synthetic data, and why the future of AI depends not just on understanding language—but on understanding and interacting with the physical world. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:08 - World Labs & SceniX 06:04 - Marble & the Data Bottleneck in Robotics 07:13 - How the Two Teams Come Together 10:55 - Building a Foundation Model for Robotics 12:35 - Video Models vs Real-to-Sim-to-Real 19:38 - Why Simulation is Essential for Robot Learning 23:01 - Training, Evaluation & Real Customer Use Cases 29:17 - Humanoids, Semi-Structured Environments & the Grand Challenge 36:56 - Integration Plans & What Success Looks Like in Two Years Resources: Follow Fei-Fei Li on X: https://x.com/drfeifei Follow Yunzhu Li on X: https://x.com/YunzhuLiYZ Follow Martin Casado on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

Fei-Fei LiguestYunzhu LiguestMartin Casadohost

Jul 28, 202642mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: July 28, 2026
Duration: 42m
Channel: a16z
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Last week, World Labs announced its acquisition of SceniX, bringing together two teams working on one of AI's biggest unsolved problems: how to give machines a true understanding of the physical world. Martin Casado sits down with Fei-Fei Li, co-founder and CEO of World Labs, creator of ImageNet, and pioneer of spatial intelligence, alongside Yunzhu Li, co-founder of SceniX and assistant professor at Columbia University. They discuss why World Labs acquired SceniX, how simulation can unlock the next generation of robotics, and why training robots may require a fundamentally different approach than training language models. The conversation explores real-to-sim-to-real pipelines, world models, robotics foundation models, evaluation, synthetic data, and why the future of AI depends not just on understanding language—but on understanding and interacting with the physical world. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:08 - World Labs & SceniX 06:04 - Marble & the Data Bottleneck in Robotics 07:13 - How the Two Teams Come Together 10:55 - Building a Foundation Model for Robotics 12:35 - Video Models vs Real-to-Sim-to-Real 19:38 - Why Simulation is Essential for Robot Learning 23:01 - Training, Evaluation & Real Customer Use Cases 29:17 - Humanoids, Semi-Structured Environments & the Grand Challenge 36:56 - Integration Plans & What Success Looks Like in Two Years Resources: Follow Fei-Fei Li on X: https://x.com/drfeifei Follow Yunzhu Li on X: https://x.com/YunzhuLiYZ Follow Martin Casado on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

SPEAKERS

Fei-Fei Li
guest
AI researcher and founder/leader of World Labs, known for work in computer vision and spatial intelligence.
Yunzhu Li
guest
Co-founder of SceniX and assistant professor at Columbia University focused on robotics, simulation, and world models.
Martin Casado
host
a16z partner and podcast host focused on AI and infrastructure investing.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of a16z, featuring Fei-Fei Li and Yunzhu Li, The Next Frontier of AI Is Spatial Intelligence | Fei-Fei Li on a16z explores fei-Fei Li explains spatial intelligence powering real-to-sim robotics foundation models World Labs frames “spatial intelligence” as the next AI frontier: models that understand, generate, and reason about 3D spaces and interactions across physical and virtual worlds.

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