Westlake University launches world model research center focused on physical intelligence
Westlake University has set up the Westlake World Model Research Center at its Yungu campus in Hangzhou, according to a Techub News item published on Oct. 31 Beijing time. The center will focus on world models and physical intelligence. Professor Yu Kaicheng will serve as director, while Academician Jin Yaochu has been named chief scientist. The center traces back to work started three years ago by Westlake University’s autonomous intelligence lab, AutoLab, which had already been building around world models. That effort also led to the incubation of Awomo, also referred to as Westlake Digital Intelligence. The company is positioned around foundation models for the physical world and has raised more than 100 million yuan across seed and angel rounds. The report said world models are designed to help AI understand physical laws, predict environmental changes, and anticipate the consequences of actions. It also noted that Li Feifei and Yann LeCun have recently moved into the field, while Google DeepMind released Genie4, combining a world model with a reasoning model. The original report was attributed to QbitAI.
