AMD announced today that it will acquire World Labs, an artificial-intelligence research startup, in an all-stock transaction valued at roughly $8.2 billion. The deal, disclosed through an AMD press release, represents one of the largest AI-focused acquisitions of the year and will be settled by issuing AMD shares to World Labs shareholders.
World Labs was founded in 2024 by a team that includes Dr. Fei-Fei Li, a leading figure in computer-vision research. Within a few months of its launch, the company achieved a valuation of $1 billion, reflecting rapid investor confidence in its technology platform and the market demand for advanced generative-AI tools.
In 2025 World Labs released its first commercial offering, a model named Marble that generates interactive three-dimensional environments from textual prompts. Marble enables users to create immersive 3D worlds on demand, positioning the startup at the forefront of the emerging world-generation segment of generative AI.
As part of the acquisition, Dr. Fei-Fei Li, who co-founded World Labs and serves as its chief executive officer, will assume the role of chief scientist at AMD. The appointment is intended to integrate World Labs’ research expertise directly into AMD’s hardware and software development pipelines.
The World Labs transaction follows a wave of multi-billion-dollar AI deals, most recently Nvidia’s announcement to acquire Hugging Face for nearly $13 billion. These high-profile purchases underscore the intense competition among chipmakers and AI platform providers to secure cutting-edge technologies and talent. Analysts view the consolidation as a response to escalating demand for generative AI capabilities across industries.
By bringing World Labs’ Marble technology and research team under its umbrella, AMD aims to broaden its AI portfolio and enhance its competitiveness in the generative-AI market. The acquisition aligns with AMD’s broader strategy to integrate advanced AI models with its processing architectures, although specific product roadmaps have not been disclosed.