AMD will pay $8.2 billion for a two-year-old AI start-up.
AMD agreed to buy World Labs in an all-stock deal, the chipmaker said on Monday.
The company was founded by Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li.
World Labs builds what it calls world models. The AI is trained on video and 3D data to understand how objects sit and move in a real space. Its product, Marble, turns text or images into 3D worlds and can do the same with video. Those worlds are used in entertainment and to train robots in simulation.
In February, World Labs raised $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation. AMD and Nvidia were among the investors. Autodesk also participated. Seven months later, the deal values World Labs at about 1.6 times that.
If the deal closes, Fei-Fei Li becomes AMD's executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to CEO Lisa Su. The deal needs regulatory approval and is expected to close by the end of 2026.
"Building the compute platforms for the next generation of AI requires a deep understanding of how models are evolving," Su said.
World Labs' simulated worlds are already used to train robots before they touch a real floor.
Which warehouse or factory change would you want tested in a simulated world before anyone touches the real one?
Sources
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