AMD buys World Labs from Fei-Fei Li for $8.2 billion in physical AI bet
Advanced Micro Devices announced on Monday its intention to acquire Fei-Fei Li’s AI startup, World Labs, in an all-stock transaction valued at $8.2 billion. This strategic move is expected to provide the chipmaker with a significant presence in the research of physical AI systems capable of understanding and simulating the world. The acquisition provides AMD with insights into spatial intelligence, a burgeoning domain aimed at equipping AI systems to represent three-dimensional spaces and physical interactions. This development has the potential to influence future demand for semiconductors, software, and AI infrastructure.
“We began a deep technical partnership with AMD last year, starting with model training and inference optimization on AMD GPUs,” Li said in a post on LinkedIn. “As our teams worked together, we realized it would be a natural fit to bring together our AI ecosystem of software and hardware, foundation models, and applications.” World Labs secured $1 billion in a funding round earlier this year, which featured an investment from AMD. The technology is designed to enhance AI systems’ comprehension and reasoning regarding the physical world, presenting potential applications in robotics, simulation, design, and various other practical domains.
AMD stated that it anticipates World Labs’ research will yield greater understanding of emerging AI workloads and assist in shaping its technology roadmaps across hardware, software, and systems. Li, a prominent AI researcher recognised for her contributions to computer vision, is set to join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist following the completion of the transaction. She will report to CEO Lisa Su. The transaction is anticipated to be finalised by the conclusion of 2026.
