US chip giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has agreed to acquire World Labs, the artificial intelligence start-up founded by renowned Chinese-American computer scientist Li Fei-Fei, for US$8.2 billion in an all-stock deal, as the company steps up its rivalry with Nvidia.
The acquisition, expected to close by the end of this year, would integrate World Labs’ research team and spatial-intelligence model expertise into AMD, according to an announcement on Monday.
Li, a Stanford University professor widely known as the “godmother of AI” for creating the groundbreaking ImageNet database, would join AMD as executive vice-president and chief scientist, reporting directly to CEO Lisa Su, the announcement said.
Founded in 2024, World Labs specialises in spatial intelligence, developing so-called world models that can perceive, generate and reconstruct 3D environments. The technology is considered increasingly important for robotics and physical AI, where models must interact with the real world rather than simply process text.
