Li will become AMD\u2019s new chief scientist and executive vice-president. <\/p>\n
AMD has agreed to acquire AI pioneer Dr Fei-Fei Li\u2019s start-up World Labs in an $8.2bn deal, as physical AI systems further prove their commercial capabilities across areas such as autonomous driving and the factory floor.<\/p>\n
World Labs describes itself as a \u201cspatial intelligence company\u201d whose models can \u201cperceive, generate, reason and interact with virtual and physical worlds\u201d. Its flagship product, Marble, generates 3D virtual worlds from image or text prompts.<\/p>\n
Li, one of the industry\u2019s leading minds and the founding director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI institute, will be joining AMD as its chief scientist and executive vice-president, reporting directly to the company\u2019s chair and CEO Dr Lisa Su.<\/p>\n
The AMD chief was an early investor in World Labs and is a long-term \u201cbeliever<\/a>\u201d in its mission, Li wrote in a blogpost yesterday (28 September). World Labs\u2019 team of about 70 employees will also join the semiconductor giant following the acquisition. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.<\/p>\n Li said that her start-up, which she co-founded with AI researchers Ben Mildenhall and Justin Johnson in 2024, began a \u201cdeep technical partnership\u201d with AMD last year.<\/p>\n \u201cAs our teams worked together, we realised what a natural fit it would be to bring together our AI ecosystem of software and hardware, foundation models and applications,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the San Francisco-based start-up raised $1bn in a round backed by Nvidia, AMD and Autodesk<\/a>, among others, at a reported $5bn valuation. Autodesk invested $200m in World Labs as part of the round, and picked up an advisory role in the company.<\/p>\n Li backed US AI robotics company Generalist in its recent $400m round<\/a> that also saw participation from Nvidia\u2019s venture arm NVentures, Jeff Bezos\u2019s Bezos Expeditions and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan.<\/p>\n