From The Verge · Jay Peters · · 1m 40s
AMD buys World Labs for $8.2 billion
AMD acquires AI research lab World Labs in all-stock deal, bringing co-founder Fei-Fei Li on as chief scientist.
In brief
AMD acquires AI research lab World Labs in all-stock deal, bringing co-founder Fei-Fei Li on as chief scientist. AMD is acquiring AI company World Labs for approximately eight point two billion dollars in an all-stock deal, with co-founder Dr. Fei-Fei Li becoming AMD's chief scientist. Originally reported by The Verge.
AMD announces World Labs deal
AMD announced today it is acquiring World Labs, an AI research lab co-founded by Dr. Fei-Fei Li, in an all-stock deal worth approximately eight point two billion dollars.
World Labs' rapid rise
World Labs launched in two thousand twenty-four and was valued at one billion dollars in a matter of months. The startup launched its first commercial product, a world generation model called Marble, in two thousand twenty-five.
Li becomes AMD's chief scientist
The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Dr. Fei-Fei Li will become executive vice president and chief scientist at AMD, reporting to CEO Lisa Su.
Li explains the move
Li said on her Substack that it was time to do a startup to jumpstart work on foundation models beyond large language models. She says joining AMD is the right path to continue that mission.
“Just like I knew it was time to do a startup to jumpstart the work of creating foundation models beyond LLMs and achieve the most impact in AI, it's again very clear that the right path for myself and World Labs is to continue our mission as a part of AMD.”
AMD's strategic rationale
AMD CEO Lisa Su said building compute platforms for the next generation of AI requires deep understanding of how models are evolving. The World Labs team brings research leadership and model expertise to develop hardware, software and systems.
“Building the compute platforms for the next generation of AI requires a deep understanding of how models are evolving.”
Part of a broader AI spending wave
The World Labs deal is the latest multi-billion dollar AI-related acquisition. Nvidia announced earlier this month it would be acquiring Hugging Face for nearly thirteen billion dollars.
Here's the gist
AMD is acquiring AI company World Labs for approximately eight point two billion dollars in an all-stock deal, with co-founder Dr. Fei-Fei Li becoming AMD's chief scientist.
