AMD to Acquire AI Lab World Labs for $8.2 Billion in All-Stock Deal
Fei-Fei Li will become AMD’s executive vice president and chief scientist, with World Labs’ team continuing AI model research. The startup launched Marble, a text-to-3D-world model, in 2025 after reaching a $1 billion valuation within months.
AMD announced in September 2026 that it is acquiring World Labs, an AI research lab co-founded by researcher Dr. Fei-Fei Li, in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $8.2 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
World Labs launched in 2024 and reached a $1 billion valuation within months. In 2025, the startup released its first commercial product — a world generation model called Marble that allows users to create interactive 3D worlds from a text prompt.
As part of the acquisition, Li will join AMD as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist, reporting to AMD CEO Lisa Su. The World Labs team will continue working on AI model research within AMD.
“Just like I knew it was time to do a startup to jumpstart the work of creating foundation models beyond LLMs and achieve the most impact in AI, it’s again very clear that the right path for myself and World Labs is to continue our mission as a part of AMD,” Li wrote in a post on her Substack.
AMD says the acquisition will strengthen “its ability to develop AI hardware, software and systems around the needs of emerging models and applications.” Su added that the World Labs team’s “research leadership and model expertise” will help AMD “develop the hardware, software and systems that will power the next generation of AI.”
The deal arrives amid a wave of large AI-related acquisitions. Earlier in September 2026, Nvidia announced it would acquire AI platform Hugging Face for nearly $13 billion. The AMD–World Labs transaction suggests major chip companies are moving to integrate AI research talent and model development capabilities directly into their organizations.