New Delhi, April 24 -- With everyone's attention fixed on powerful chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude, it's been easy to overlook the growth of another field of artificial intelligence: world models.

These systems can grasp three-dimensional space and physics, providing the foundation for everything from robots to smart glasses to self-driving cars-and a capability that today's chatbots lack.

In the past two weeks, Nvidia, Alibaba and Tencent each released their own world models, signalling that a new cast of characters could pioneer the next AI revolution.

The companies at the forefront are chasing different commercial strategies-Tencent's HY-World 2.0 is open source while Nvidia's model is for researchers only-and China is proving itse...