US chipmaker purchases spatial intelligence startup in all-stock transaction to accelerate hardware and software integration.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has agreed to acquire AI startup World Labs in an all-stock transaction valued at $8.2 billion. Founded by computer vision pioneer Fei-Fei Li, World Labs specialises in spatial intelligence—an emerging subfield focused on training AI systems to model, simulate, and interact with three-dimensional physical environments. The acquisition strengthens AMD’s research capabilities across robotics, design simulation, and real-world applications while providing crucial insights to shape its long-term hardware, software, and silicon roadmaps.
The takeover follows a technical collaboration established last year between the two firms, alongside a $1 billion funding round earlier this year in which AMD participated as an investor. Following the transaction’s anticipated closure by late 2026, Li will join AMD as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist, reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su. The unit will focus on building an open AI architecture integrating foundation models, software platforms, and specialized processing hardware.
Fei-Fei Li noted in a LinkedIn post: “We began a deep technical partnership with AMD last year, starting with model training and inference optimization on AMD GPUs. 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.”
