Li Fei-Fei's startup, World Labs, has announced an agreement with Google Cloud, selecting Google Cloud as the primary computing provider for training its AI models. This deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
World Labs will utilize GPU server licensing on the Google Cloud platform to provide computational services for its large-scale multimodal AI models. The company's AI model, dubbed "Spatial Intelligence," is capable of processing, generating, and interacting with video and geospatial data.
Google Cloud stated that World Labs' AI models have significant computational demands, requiring high-performance toolkits and a robust supply of AI chips. Google Cloud's AI chips, Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), and Nvidia's GPUs will provide the necessary computational services for World Labs.
Li Fei-Fei previously led Google's AI efforts in 2018, but Google Cloud noted that this deal was not influenced by her relationship with the company. Instead, it was due to Google Cloud's services and capabilities. James Lee, General Manager of AI at Google Cloud, said that World Labs chose Google Cloud for its AI-optimized infrastructure and ability to meet its scalability needs.
This transaction represents the latest move by cloud service providers to court AI startups. Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS are all vying for the business of these startups, as they require substantial computational services for training and running AI models.