Decart's Oasis 3 world model brings photorealistic driving simulation to API, priced at $0.02 per second
Decart launches Oasis 3, an interactive world model for autonomous vehicle simulation, as the startup positions itself as the 'OpenAI of world models' with a $4B valuation.
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Decart, a two-year-old AI startup, launched Oasis 3, an interactive world model designed to generate photorealistic driving scenarios in real time, according to an exclusive report from TechCrunch. The model is immediately available via API at $0.02 per second, with tiered enterprise pricing for larger deployments. The release follows Decart’s recent $300 million funding round, which elevated the company’s valuation to approximately $4 billion and attracted strategic investors including Toyota, Adobe, eBay, and returning backer Nvidia.
Decart’s Developer-First Positioning
Decart co-founder and CEO Dean Leitersdorf framed Oasis 3 as the foundation of a developer ecosystem around world models. According to TechCrunch, Leitersdorf stated: “It’s going to be the first usable world model that people can actually program on top of.” This strategy mirrors OpenAI’s approach to large language models—prioritizing API accessibility and third-party integration over exclusive enterprise deals. Decart already maintains a community exceeding 100,000 developers, many building products atop the company’s real-time video model Lucy, primarily in e-commerce and live streaming sectors. Oasis 3 extends that foundation into what Decart calls physical AI, targeting autonomous vehicle simulation alongside future robotics applications.
Efficiency as Competitive Moat
Decart’s technical differentiation rests on computational efficiency achieved through vertical integration. The startup has built the DOS (Decart Optimization Stack), proprietary software that optimizes model execution across Nvidia, Amazon, and Google hardware. According to TechCrunch, Leitersdorf claimed the company operates at “more than an order of magnitude cheaper” per inference than competitors, enabling longer, photorealistic generations that competitors cannot sustain economically. This efficiency explains why Decart has consumed “drastically less” than $100 million in total lifetime spend despite building resource-intensive generative models.
Competing in an Expanding Arena
Oasis 3 enters a densely populated world-model landscape. Google released Genie 3 in research preview last year; Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs commercialized Marble; and video-generation platforms Luma and Runway have begun translating their physics-aware models into interactive simulations. Decart’s immediate advantage is photorealism paired with infinite generation capability—the latter made possible by its efficiency stack.
Why This Matters
For autonomous vehicle teams, Oasis 3 reduces the cost of synthetic scenario generation, enabling cheaper testing of edge cases. For developers, Decart is signaling that world models may become a general-purpose infrastructure layer—like APIs for language models—rather than vertical solutions. If Oasis 3’s efficiency claims hold under production workloads, the pricing model ($0.02/second) could reshape how simulation-heavy AI workflows are architected. However, the “caveats” referenced in the reporting (not fully detailed in available coverage) suggest limitations remain; independent benchmarks comparing Oasis 3 against Google Genie 3 and World Labs Marble would clarify whether photorealism and speed trade off against physical accuracy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Oasis 3, and what can it do?
Oasis 3 is Decart's interactive world model that generates photorealistic, physically accurate driving environments in real time. It can simulate rare autonomous vehicle scenarios and supports multi-camera perspectives.
How much does Oasis 3 cost?
API access is priced at $0.02 per second of generated video, with enterprise pricing available for custom use cases.
Why is Decart positioning itself as an 'OpenAI of world models'?
By offering API access from launch and building a developer ecosystem, Decart aims to establish world models as a general-purpose programmable platform, not just a specialist tool for automotive companies.
Who are Decart's backers?
According to TechCrunch, Decart's $300M Series C (which valued the company at ~$4B) included strategic investors Toyota, Adobe, and eBay, plus returning investor Nvidia.