SBVA Invests €30M in Yann LeCun's AMI Frontier AI Lab

Seoul, South Korea — SBVA announced Wednesday a commitment of €30 million (approximately $32.8 million) to the seed funding round of AMI (Advanced Machine Intelligence), an artificial intelligence research laboratory founded by Professor Yann LeCun.

The funding round included participation from NVIDIA and institutional investors Greycroft Partners, Cathay Innovation, and Hiro Capital.

Individual investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and former Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, according to an SBVA statement.

SBVA, led by Chief Executive JP Lee, used its 2023 Alpha Korea Fund, Alpha Intelligence Fund, and Alpha AI Architecture Fund for the transaction.

The fund's limited partners include South Korean corporations Coupang and Doosan.

AMI, led by Professor LeCun—a recipient of the ACM Turing Award and founding director of Meta's Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) unit—is staffed by researchers previously affiliated with Meta and Google DeepMind.

The laboratory is developing architectures based on self-supervised learning and Joint Embedding Predictive Architectures (JEPA).

The laboratory aims to develop artificial intelligence systems capable of human-like reasoning and practical intelligence within real-world environments.

SBVA stated that it will serve as a partner in integrating AMI's technology into the Asian industrial sector.

The firm intends to facilitate proof-of-concept initiatives between AMI and corporate partners, with an emphasis on sectors such as robotics and manufacturing.

An AMI official said the investment reflects the laboratory's commitment to establishing partnerships across South Korea and Asia.