AMD has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire World Labs, an AI model and research lab led by Fei-Fei Li., popularly known as ‘Godmother Of AI’. In a statement, the company said that the acquisition will bring a world-class team of researchers and model experts to AMD, strengthening its ability to develop AI hardware, software and systems around the needs of emerging models and applications.As per chip giant, following the close of the transaction, the World Labs team will continue to focus on advancing AI model research, and Fei-Fei Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to AMD CEO Lisa Su. The all-stock transaction is valued at approximately $8.2 billion and is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.As AI expands into reasoning, robotics, simulation and physical AI, the demands on compute infrastructure become more diverse. World Labs’ expertise in developing advanced models will give AMD deeper insight into how workloads are evolving and help shape its future technology roadmaps. The acquisition advances AMD’s strategy to deliver AI infrastructure for an open ecosystem.“Building the compute platforms for the next generation of AI requires a deep understanding of how models are evolving,” said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO, AMD. “Fei-Fei and the World Labs team bring exceptional research leadership and model expertise. Together, we can use that insight to develop the hardware, software and systems that will power the next generation of AI and strengthen the open AI ecosystem.”“Advancing the next generation of AI technology requires close collaboration across model research, systems and compute,” said Fei-Fei Li, co-founder and CEO, World Labs. “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.”Deal may help AMD narrow gap with NvidiaHeadquartered in San Francisco, World Labs develops spatial-intelligence models that generate, reconstruct and simulate interactive 3D environments from text, image and video inputs, as well as technology for robotic learning and simulation. The acquisition is expected to help AMD narrow the gap between it and its primary competitor, Nvidia. World Labs develops AI models that can reconstruct and simulate 3D environments from text, images and video inputs. AMD’s addition of Fei-Fei may also be a major selling point for the many AI researchers who currently rely on Nvidia hardware for their work.
