“Building the compute platforms for the next generation of AI requires a deep understanding of how models are evolving,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said. “Fei-Fei and the World Labs team bring exceptional research leadership and model expertise.”
AMD said the acquisition is intended to help it better understand how emerging AI workloads are changing as applications expand into areas including reasoning, robotics, simulation and physical AI. That insight could feed into the company’s future product roadmaps across chips, software and infrastructure.
World Labs has demonstrated that approach through models such as Marble, which can create three-dimensional environments from a small number of images. The company’s broader focus is on spatial intelligence, where AI systems develop richer representations of physical and simulated environments.
Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist after the transaction closes, reporting to Su. World Labs’ team will continue working on AI model research.
“Advancing the next generation of AI technology requires close collaboration across model research, systems and compute,” Li said. “Joining AMD will give our team the resources and engineering depth to accelerate our research and help define the infrastructure needed for the next era of AI.”
Li is a Stanford professor and the founding director of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI. She previously led the Stanford AI Lab and served as vice president and chief scientist of AI and machine learning at Google Cloud. She is also known for creating ImageNet, the large-scale image dataset and benchmark that played a major role in the development of modern computer vision.
AMD had previously invested in World Labs. The acquisition deepens that relationship and gives the chipmaker a larger role in model development itself rather than focusing only on the compute systems that run those models.
The deal is AMD’s second-largest acquisition on record, behind its roughly $50 billion purchase of Xilinx in 2022. It also adds AMD to a growing list of major technology companies spending heavily on AI research teams and companies.
Nvidia recently agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, while OpenAI bought Jony Ive’s AI device startup io for about $6.4 billion last year. Meta also invested $14 billion for a minority stake in Scale AI in 2025.
AMD said the World Labs transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval and other customary conditions. Until then, World Labs will remain separate from AMD’s chip business.
This analysis is based on reporting from CNBC.
Image courtesy of AMD.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
