AMD to acquire Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2 billion, adding a chief scientist

AMD said on September 28, 2026, that it will acquire World Labs, the artificial intelligence startup founded by Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li, in an all-stock deal valued at about $8.2 billion. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

World Labs builds spatial-intelligence AI models that generate, reconstruct and simulate interactive 3D environments from text, image and video inputs, along with technology aimed at robotic learning and simulation.

Li, known for building the ImageNet database that helped drive the modern deep-learning boom, will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting directly to chief executive Lisa Su. AMD said the World Labs team will keep working on AI model research after the deal closes.

"Fei-Fei and the World Labs team bring exceptional research leadership and model expertise," Su said in a statement announcing the deal. "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."

AMD framed the purchase as part of a broader push to compete with Nvidia in AI computing, saying the research expertise will feed into its hardware and software roadmap as AI use expands into reasoning, robotics and other physical-world applications.