AMD to Buy World Labs for $8.2B, Fei-Fei Li to Become Chief Scientist
A chipmaker is buying a frontier model lab in reverse; AMD gains not just a team but a say in how next-generation AI workloads evolve, pending regulatory approval.
Original event 2026-09-28
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AMD announced on September 28 that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire World Labs, the lab founded by Fei-Fei Li, in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $8.2 billion, expected to close by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approval.
World Labs, headquartered in San Francisco, builds spatial-intelligence models that generate interactive 3D environments from text, images and video, and works on robot learning and simulation. After closing, the team will keep doing model research, and Fei-Fei Li joins AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to CEO Lisa Su.
Su's stated logic is that building compute platforms for the next generation of AI requires understanding how models evolve. A chipmaker pulling a model lab inside its walls runs opposite to the usual direction of AI vertical integration; but the deal is all-stock, so the $8.2 billion figure floats with AMD's share price, and closing is not yet certain.