Key facts
- AMD is acquiring World Labs for $8.2 billion in an all-stock deal.
- The acquisition aims to give AMD a foothold in research on physical AI systems.
- World Labs focuses on spatial intelligence, enabling AI to model 3D environments.
- Fei-Fei Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist.
- The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026.
Advanced Micro Devices announced on Monday it will acquire AI startup World Labs in an all-stock deal valued at $8.2 billion. The move is intended to provide the chipmaker with a significant presence in the research of physical AI systems, which can understand and simulate the real world.
World Labs' research centers on spatial intelligence, an emerging field focused on enabling AI systems to model three-dimensional environments and physical interactions. This technology could influence future demand for chips, software, and AI infrastructure. Fei-Fei Li, the founder of World Labs and a prominent AI researcher known for her work in computer vision, stated that her team began a deep technical partnership with AMD last year, focusing on model training and inference optimization on AMD GPUs. She noted that working together revealed a natural fit for combining their AI ecosystem of software, hardware, foundation models, and applications.
Earlier this year, World Labs raised $1 billion in a funding round that included an investment from AMD. The technology developed by World Labs is aimed at helping AI systems better understand and reason about the physical world, with potential applications in robotics, simulation, design, and other real-world scenarios. AMD anticipates that World Labs' research will offer deeper insights into emerging AI workloads and guide its technology roadmaps across hardware, software, and systems.
Following the completion of the transaction, Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to CEO Lisa Su. The deal is anticipated to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.