Fei-Fei Li speaks onstage during the 29th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on May 12, 2025 in New York City.” width=”970″ height=”684″ data-caption=’Fei-Fei Li speaks onstage during the 29th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on May 12, 2025 in New York City. <span class=”media-credit”>Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for The Webby Awards</span>’>
Fei-Fei Li, often referred to as the “Godmother of A.I.” for her pioneering work in the field, understands the deep value of academia. During her time at Princeton University, she made major breakthroughs in data training, and today she co-directs Stanford University’s Human-Centered A.I. Institute (HAI). As she sees it, university research—which is facing widespread funding cuts under the Trump administration—is foundational to the nation’s innovation economy.
“Almost everything that we know as classic knowledge of A.I. came from academic research, whether it’s algorithms or data driven methods or early research in microprocessor,” said Li while speaking at Semafor Tech in San Francisco yesterday (May 21). “Continuing to nourish our higher education, our public sector, for this kind of innovative, blue sky, curiosity-driven research is critical for the health of our ecosystem.”
In recent months, the Trump administration has slashed funding for major grant-making agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. As a result, some universities have halted Ph.D. admissions or imposed hiring freezes, while researchers increasingly consider opportunities abroad as other nations launch efforts to attract American talent.
Retaining top academic minds in the U.S. is essential, Li emphasized. “It’s still important that we remain the magnet of talent, because many of these talents end up staying and contributing to the workforce, to innovation,” she said, noting that even before the cuts, visa quotas made it difficult for international researchers to remain in the country.
At Stanford’s HAI and at World Labs—the startup Li launched last year—she looks for individuals with fearlessness, resilience, and the “grit to persevere, even against multiple failures.” In her view, academia and the private sector are more alike than different when it comes to tackling “big, deep tech problems that people have not solved yet.”
Exploring the physical side of A.I.
Li is currently on leave from Stanford to focus on World Labs, which raised more than $230 million last year from backers including Eric Schmidt, Reid Hoffman and Marc Benioff. The company is developing A.I. models that simulate 3D environments and can interact with the real world. While much of its work remains under wraps, World Labs offered a preview in December of technology that generates virtual 3D scenes from 2D images.
“We definitely want to make money,” Li said when asked about the company’s business model. Its early products are likely to target artists, designers and developers working in industries such as film, gaming, architecture, robotic simulation and tourism. “All of these different use cases boil down to a key piece of technology, which is to create and reason with 3D worlds,” she said.
