Research Scientist - World Modeling
About the job
- MSc or PhD in Machine Learning or Computer Science, or equivalent industry experience.
- Experience in large-scale model training (LLMs or Diffusion Models) on large clusters.
- Hands-on experience with state-of-the-art video generative models, such as Sora, Veo2, MovieGen, or CogVideoX.
- Experience building and optimizing large-scale video data pipelines.
- Experience accelerating diffusion model inference for improved efficiency.
- Strong systems and engineering expertise in deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Research contributions to top-tier conferences or journals, with published work in relevant domains.
- Develop the foundational world model to accurately simulate the physical world.
- Collaborate with engineering and data teams to tackle key challenges in training the world model on large-scale clusters.
- Develop metrics and evaluation benchmarks to better assess model performance.
- Design and implement a scalable and efficient data annotation pipeline to ensure high-quality labeled data for training and evaluation.
- Optimize inference efficiency to enable real-time interaction.
- Develop and optimize infrastructure for training multimodal LLMs and video diffusion models at massive scale.
- Build scalable video data pipelines and annotation frameworks to support high-quality training data.
- Enhance inference efficiency through optimization and distillation techniques to enable real-time interaction.
- Develop methods for discretizing visual features into tokens for improved model representation.
- Establish rigorous benchmarks to assess physical accuracy, controllability, and intelligence.
- Investigate scaling law principles to guide efficient video pre-training strategies.
- Exceptional problem-solving and troubleshooting skills to tackle complex technical challenges.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills for effective cross-functional teamwork.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive projects in rapidly evolving research areas.
About the company
IFM builds and studies foundation models—large AI models designed to learn broadly from diverse data and be used across many tasks. Its work centers on academic research to create open, fast, and practical models that address real-world societal needs, rather than narrow applications. The models are developed by a global team across Abu Dhabi, Paris, and Silicon Valley, with a strong emphasis on openness and collaboration to advance AI science and accessibility. Unlike typical private labs that lock models behind paywalls, IFM aims to provide publicly accessible, efficient models that can be used by researchers and developers to solve real problems. The overarching goal is to push the science of foundation models forward while ensuring their benefits reach society at large.
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Headquarters
United Arab Emirates
Founded
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- AWS, Cerebras, Nebius, Hugging Face, vLLM, and SGLang already distribute K2 Horizon.
- October 2026 benchmark chatter praises K2 Horizon's small models and 375B enterprise flagship.
- MBZUAI's October 2026 hiring surge supports rapid expansion across agents, world models, and infrastructure.
What critics are saying
- Open-sourcing K2 Horizon hands competitors reproducible recipes, shrinking IFM's moat by 2027.
- MBZUAI listed 45 IFM vacancies on October 2, 2026, signaling heavy execution strain.
- If K2 Horizon misses commercial adoption, IFM remains a prestige lab dependent on state capital.
What makes Institute of Foundation Models unique
- September 3, 2026 K2 Horizon shipped six fully open models with weights, code, and data.
- IFM offers Apache 2.0 frontier models, unlike closed labs protecting training recipes and checkpoints.
- MBZUAI-backed labs in Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley, and Paris combine research depth with deployment access.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Paid Vacation
Paid Holidays
Parental Leave
Employee Assistance Program
Life Insurance
Disability Insurance
401(k) Plan
Wellness Program
Flexible Work Hours
Remote Work Options
Hybrid Work Options
Stock Options
Company Equity
Company News
The Institute of Foundation Models has launched K2 Horizon, a fleet of six fully open-source AI models ranging from 0.9 billion to 375 billion parameters. The models include weights, code, training data, and methodologies, allowing researchers and developers to inspect and reproduce the work. The 0.9B, 3.7B, and 7B models set new benchmarks at their respective scales. The smallest model can run on watches and glasses, whilst the 3.7B and 7B models work on phones. The dense 32B model and sparse 36B model suit local hosting, and the 375B flagship model targets enterprise deployments. Launched by Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in May 2025, IFM now operates across Silicon Valley, Paris, and Abu Dhabi. The models are available through Hugging Face, vLLM, and SGLang, with API access through partners including AWS and Cerebras. All models use the Apache 2.0 licence.