World Foundation Models: 10 Use Cases & Examples [2025]

Training robots and autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the physical world can be costly, time-consuming, and risky. World Foundation Models offer a scalable alternative by enabling realistic simulations of real-world environments.

These models accelerate development and deployment in robotics, AVs, and other domains by reducing reliance on physical testing.

Explore how World Foundation Models work, their real-life use cases, and the tangible benefits they deliver.

World Foundation Models use cases

World Foundation Models helps train machines to sense, perceive, and interact effectively with complex, dynamic environments by offering tools to generate, curate, and encode video data. Below are the applications of World Foundation Models in various fields:

Robotics

In robotics, World Foundation Models play a critical role in enabling robots to operate effectively in dynamic, real-world settings by:

1. Building spatial intelligence: Robots gain an understanding of their surroundings through simulated training environments, allowing them to navigate and manipulate objects with precision.

2. Enhanced learning efficiency: Simulated environments accelerate training by providing controlled scenarios where robots can experiment and learn from mistakes without physical consequences.

3. Task generalization: By integrating input from various modalities such as visual, auditory, and tactile sensors, World Foundation Models support transfer learning, enabling robots to adapt to new environments and tasks with minimal retraining.

4. Complex task planning: These models enable robots to perform long-horizon planning, such as assembling objects, predicting human actions, or coordinating with other robots in industrial or collaborative settings.

Real-life example:

NVIDIA introduced NVIDIA Cosmos World Foundation Models, an advanced platform designed to accelerate the development of physical AI systems, including autonomous vehicles (AVs) and robots.

NVIDIA Cosmos Suite integrates generative world foundation models (WFMs), advanced tokenizers, built-in guardrails, and a high-speed video processing pipeline.

NVIDIA NeMo Curator, coupled with the CUDA-accelerated pipeline, processes 20 million hours of video in just two weeks, therefore cutting costs and time.

The NVIDIA Cosmos Tokenizer achieves superior compression and faster image and video data processing. Here are the key features of NVIDIA Cosmos Suite:

• Enables the creation of vast amounts of photorealistic, physics-based synthetic data for training and evaluating AI models.
• Generates physics-based videos using diverse inputs like text, images, video, and sensor data.
• Simulates complex industrial and driving environments, including warehouses and varied road conditions.
• Facilitates video search for specific scenarios and model evaluation under simulated conditions.
• Developers can fine-tune WFMs to build custom models suited to specific applications.
• WFMs are accessible under an open license to foster collaboration within the robotics and autonomous vehicles communities.
• Models can be previewed via NVIDIA’s API catalog or downloaded from NVIDIA NGC and Hugging Face platforms.¹

Figure 1: Major components of NVIDIA Cosmos Suite: video curator, video tokenizer, pre-trained world foundation model, world foundation model post-training samples, and guardrail.²

Real-life example:

The Proc4Gem system uses a simulation-trained model to follow language instructions with a quadruped robot, pushing objects accurately in unseen real-world settings.³

Key features:

• Simulates realistic 3D environments for training perception and motor control.
• Supports instruction-following via language.
• Enables long-horizon planning and interaction tasks.
• Enables models to transfer from simulation to real robots.
• Frameworks and models are publicly available via open sources.

Autonomous vehicles

World foundation models can enhance the development pipeline of autonomous vehicles (AVs) by:

5. Training with pre-labeled data: They provide pre-labeled and encoded video datasets that allow AV systems to accurately identify and interpret surrounding vehicles, pedestrians, and objects in diverse conditions.

6. Scenario generation: These models can create simulated scenarios such as various traffic patterns, weather conditions, and pedestrian behaviors that fill gaps in real-world training data.

7. Scalability and localization: Developers can use virtual environments to replicate conditions in new geographic locations, allowing AVs to adapt to diverse road regulations, cultural driving behaviors, and infrastructure designs without extensive on-road testing.

8. Sensor fusion and calibration: WFMs can simulate multi-sensor inputs—camera, LiDAR, radar, and GPS—within the same environment. This helps AV systems train for accurate sensor fusion and calibration, essential for understanding depth, speed, and movement in complex driving contexts.

9. Safety and cost efficiency: AV systems can iterate and optimize in a risk-free setting by testing in virtual environments, reducing costs and potential for accidents during real-world trials.

Real-life example:

Waabi, Foretellix, XPENG, and Wayve use NVIDIA Cosmos World Foundation Models to simulate traffic scenarios, weather conditions, and pedestrian behaviors. These companies run tests in virtual environments without physical trials.⁴

The platform uses NVIDIA NeMo Curator to process and label over 20 million hours of video via CUDA acceleration in about two weeks.

Key features:

• Generates labeled traffic, weather, lighting, and pedestrian scenarios.
• Produces photorealistic video with sensor data.
• Simulates regional driving norms for localization.
• Enables risk-free validation of AV systems.

10. Multimodal integration

Integrating WFMs with large language models (LLMs) and other computing resources, such as high-performance computing (HPC), enhances Physical AI systems by adding semantic understanding.

This combination supports visual language models and multimodal capabilities, enabling more sophisticated interactions with image and video data.

Real-life example:

NVIDIA’s Earth-2 is an initiative designed to use AI and high-performance computing (HPC) to simulate the Earth’s climate and weather systems in high resolution. It represents a next-generation approach to weather forecasting and climate modeling.

What is the technology behind it?

NVIDIA is using its Omniverse platform, which is built on top of NVIDIA’s graphics processing units (GPUs) and AI tools, to create realistic simulations. The idea is to generate highly detailed, accurate simulations of the Earth’s climate by leveraging AI to model complex weather patterns and make more precise forecasts.

What is the impact?

Earth-2’s ultimate goal is to provide better weather forecasts, help understand long-term climate trends, and mitigate climate change.

More accurate simulations can lead to better preparedness for extreme weather events, more efficient energy use, and improved disaster response strategies.⁵

To explore how NVIDIA’s AI technology is advancing weather forecasting and climate modeling, watch the video below for a detailed look at the Earth-2 platform and its impact on storm predictions:

Real-life example:

Google Gemini 2.0 (Flash and Pro versions) supports multimodal input—text, images, video, and audio—and offers new APIs like Gemini Live Multimodal Access for camera and voice in real time.⁶

Key features:

• Processes and reasons over text, images, video, and audio.
• Enables reasoning based on combined sensory inputs.
• Supports visual-language agents and real-time interaction.
• Used in robotics, healthcare, and multimodal AI research.
• Available through Google Cloud, Gemini API, and public releases.

Real-life example:

Tempus, AstraZeneca, and Pathos are developing multimodal models in oncology, combining imaging, genomic, and clinical data for biomarker discovery.⁷

What are World Foundation Models?

World foundation models are advanced AI systems designed to simulate and predict real-world environments and their dynamics.

These models process various data inputs, including textual information, visual data such as images and videos, and movement-related data, to create realistic and immersive simulations of physical and virtual scenarios.

The core capability of world foundation models lies in their understanding of fundamental physical principles, such as motion, force, causality, and spatial relationships.

This enables them to simulate how objects and entities interact within a given environment, whether it’s the movement of a vehicle, the dynamics of a robotic arm, or the interplay of objects in a virtual world.

A key application of these models is in developing and refining physical AI systems, such as robots and autonomous vehicles. By providing a safe and controlled environment for training and testing, these models can reduce the need for real-world experimentation, which can be costly, time-consuming, and potentially hazardous.

Additionally, world foundation models can generate high-quality, realistic video content, which can be used for various purposes, including entertainment, education, and research.

Their ability to simulate accurate and detailed environments makes them essential tools for developers, enabling more efficient and precise AI performance enhancements.

Physical AI systems: Definition & importance

Physical AI applications refer to artificial intelligence systems equipped with sensors for perceiving the physical world and actuators for interacting with and modifying it.

They empower autonomous machines, such as robots, self-driving cars, and other devices, to perform complex actions in real-world environments.

Often described as “generative physical AI,” it extends generative AI models with an understanding of spatial relationships and the physical rules governing the 3D world.

How does physical AI work?

Generative physical AI combines generative AI with physical-world data for enhanced functionality.

During training, AI systems are exposed to simulations that mimic real-world scenarios. These simulations rely on digital twins, highly accurate virtual replicas of physical spaces like factories, where autonomous machines and sensors are introduced. The virtual environment generates 3D training data, capturing interactions such as object movement, collisions, and light dynamics.

Reinforcement learning is critical in this process. It allows machines to learn skills through trial and error in these simulated environments. Rewards are given for completing desired actions, enabling the AI to adapt, improve, and eventually master tasks with precision. This process equips machines with sophisticated motor skills necessary for real-world applications.

Why are physical AI systems important?

Previously, autonomous machines struggled to sense and interact effectively with their surroundings. Physical AI overcomes this limitation by enabling robots and other devices to perceive, adapt, and interact with their environment.

Physical AI systems help improve efficiency, safety, and accessibility across industries by creating machines capable of performing intricate tasks, from surgical procedures to warehouse navigation.

Physical AI relies on advanced physics-based simulations to train machines in safe, controlled settings. These simulations accelerate development, prevent damage during early learning stages, and ensure readiness for real-world deployment.

Here are some of the physical AI applications:

• Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs): Navigate complex warehouse environments, avoid obstacles, and adapt to real-time sensor feedback.
• Manipulators: Perform delicate tasks like adjusting grasp strength and positioning based on object poses.
• Humanoid robots: Require fine and gross motor skills to perceive, navigate, and interact across diverse tasks.
• Smart spaces: Large-scale indoor environments, such as warehouses and factories, benefit from Physical AI and generative AI in supply chain applications through improved safety, dynamic route planning, and operational efficiency. Advanced computer vision models monitor and optimize activities while prioritizing human safety.
• Surgical robots: Execute precision operations, such as stitching and needle threading.

Real-life example:

ORBIT-Surgical, developed by researchers from the University of Toronto, UC Berkeley, ETH Zurich, Georgia Tech, and NVIDIA, is an open-source simulation framework designed to train surgical robots. It eases surgeons’ cognitive load and enhances team performance.

Built on NVIDIA Isaac Sim, it supports laparoscopic-inspired tasks like grasping needles, transferring objects, and precise placements. Using GPU acceleration, it can train robots rapidly, with tasks like shunt insertion completed in under two hours on a single NVIDIA RTX GPU.

The framework also uses NVIDIA Omniverse to generate high-quality synthetic data for training AI perception models, improving tool recognition, and reducing reliance on real-world datasets.⁸

Why is the World Foundation Model important?

Building effective world models for Physical AI often requires vast datasets that are both time-consuming and expensive to collect, especially when capturing the wide range of real-world scenarios needed for comprehensive training.

World Foundation Models (WFMs) can address this challenge by generating synthetic data. This data is rich, varied, and scalable, and it enables developers to train AI systems more effectively without the logistical issues of gathering real-world information.

Synthetic datasets created by WFMs also help fill gaps in scenarios that might be rare or difficult to replicate in the real world.

Training and testing Physical AI systems in real-world environments pose significant challenges. These include high costs, potential risks to equipment or surroundings, and difficulty maintaining controlled conditions for consistent testing.

World Foundation Models provide a solution by offering highly realistic, virtual 3D environments where AI systems can be safely trained and tested. These environments allow developers to simulate complex physical interactions, test new capabilities, and refine AI behaviors in a controlled, repeatable manner.

Core technologies behind World Foundation Models

The construction of World Foundation Models involves multiple layers of complex processes and technologies, including data curation, tokenization, neural Networks, internal representation, and fine-tuning and specialization:

Data curation

Data curation is the first step in the development of world models. It involves systematically organizing, cleaning, and preparing extensive real-world datasets to ensure the model is trained on high-quality information. Here are the steps in data curation:

• Filtering: Identifies and retains only high-quality data.
• Annotation: Labels key objects, actions, and events using vision-language models.
• Classification: Categorizes data for specific training goals.
• Deduplication: Uses video embeddings to identify and remove redundant data for efficiency.

Video processing

Video processing involves:

• Splitting and transcoding video into smaller segments.
• Applying quality filters to isolate relevant high-resolution data.

Tokenization

Tokenization transforms raw, high-dimensional visual data into smaller, more manageable units called tokens, simplifying machine learning processes. It aims to reduce pixel redundancies and convert them into compact, semantically meaningful tokens, enabling faster and more efficient model training and inference.

There are two types of tokenization: discrete (which encodes visual data as integers) and continuous (which encodes visual data as continuous vectors).

Neural networks and internal representation

At the core of world foundation models are neural networks with billions of parameters. These networks analyze data to create and update a hidden state or an internal representation of the environment.

Key capabilities include:

• Perception: Extracts motion, depth, and other 3D dynamic behaviors from videos and images.
• Prediction: Anticipates hidden objects, motion patterns, and potential events based on learned representations.
• Adaptation: Continuously refines the hidden state through deep learning, ensuring responsiveness to new scenarios and environments.

Model architectures

World foundation models use specialized neural network architectures to simulate and predict physical phenomena effectively:

Diffusion models

• Operate by refining random noise to generate high-quality videos.
• Ideal for tasks like video generation and style transfer.

Autoregressive models

• Generate video frame-by-frame, predicting each subsequent frame based on prior ones.
• Suited for video completion and future-frame prediction.

Fine-Tuning and specialization

Initially trained for general tasks, world foundation models can be fine-tuned for specific applications.

Fine-tuning frameworks integrate libraries, SDKs, and tools to simplify data preparation, model training, performance optimization, and solution deployment, while also enabling adaptation for specialized tasks in robotics, autonomous systems, and other applications.

Benefits of World Foundation Models

By leveraging World Foundation Models, researchers and engineers can accelerate development cycles, reduce costs, and minimize risks while building more robust and adaptable Physical AI systems.

This approach can help create advanced AI applications and ensure safer and more efficient deployment in real-world scenarios.

Improved decision-making and planning

World Foundation Models enhance Physical AI systems by simulating potential future scenarios based on various action sequences. Using integrated cost or reward modules, these models evaluate outcomes to identify optimal strategies.

This foresight enables Physical AI builders to solve complex challenges, ensuring efficiency, adaptability, and safety in dynamic environments.

Realistic and physically accurate simulations

World Foundation Models, including NVIDIA’s diffusion models, generate high-fidelity 3D simulations by understanding how objects move and interact. These simulations are critical for training perception AI and testing autonomous vehicles or robotic systems in diverse environments.

For instance, self-driving cars can be evaluated under various weather and traffic conditions, while robots can be tested for object manipulation and task performance before real-world deployment.

Predictive intelligence

World Foundation Models provide predictive intelligence, allowing Physical AI systems to anticipate scenarios and make informed decisions based on video training and historical data.

Leveraging video-to-world generation and generating physics-aware videos, these models help optimize strategies, improve safety, and enhance adaptability across Physical AI setups.

Enhanced policy development with World Foundation Models

Policy evaluation: World Foundation Models, such as NVIDIA Cosmos models, allow developers of Physical AI systems to test and refine policy models in virtual environments rather than the physical world.

This method uses digital twins and is cost-effective and time-efficient. It enables diverse testing across unseen conditions, and developers can focus physical AI tasks and resources on promising policies by quickly discarding ineffective ones.

Policy initialization: World Foundation Models provide a strong foundation for initializing policy models by modeling real-world physics and dynamics. This approach addresses data scarcity challenges and accelerates Physical AI model development.

Policy training: Paired with reward models, World Foundation Models act as stand-ins for the physical world in reinforcement learning setups. These models provide feedback that helps fine-tune policy models through simulated interactions, improving their capabilities.

Future of World Foundation Model platforms

The applications of world foundation models are expected to extend far beyond autonomous vehicles and robotics. Some of the possible future applications of World Foundation Models include:

Healthcare

These models can enable simulated training for surgical robots and medical devices, ensuring precision and safety during complex procedures, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes.

Education and training

Virtual environments can provide immersive simulations for education and training, specifically for heavy machinery operators, pilots, and emergency responders, by replicating high-stakes scenarios without real-world risks.

Gaming and entertainment

By creating more interactive and adaptive AI characters, these models can transform virtual and augmented reality experiences, making them more engaging and lifelike.

Urban planning

City planners can leverage these models to simulate traffic patterns, pedestrian dynamics, and infrastructure changes, optimizing designs before physical implementation.

Security and defense

World models are expected to be essential in training drones and autonomous agents for surveillance, search-and-rescue missions, and disaster response, all within safe and controlled virtual scenarios.

External Links

• 1. NVIDIA Launches Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform to Accelerate Physical AI Development | NVIDIA Newsroom.
• 2. Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AI.
• 3. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.08593
• 4. Cosmos World Foundation Models Openly Available to Physical AI Developers | NVIDIA Blog.
• 5. NVIDIA Earth-2 Features First Gen AI to Power Weather Super-Resolution for Continental US | NVIDIA Blog.
• 6. Gemini 2.0 Flash  |  Generative AI on Vertex AI  |  Google Cloud.
• 7. Tempus Signs Expanded Strategic Agreements with AstraZeneca and Pathos to Develop the Largest Multimodal Foundation Model in Oncology - Tempus. Tempus
• 8. Needle-Moving AI Research Trains Surgical Robots in Simulation | NVIDIA Blog.