AMD acquires WorldNet for $8.2 billion, adds AI model research heft

AMD said it is acquiring World Labs for $8.2 billion in a deal that gives the chipmaker more heft in AI models that extend into robotics and physical AI. The acquisition also lands Dr. Fei-Fei Li, an AI pioneer known for creating ImageNet, at AMD.

The company said the World Labs acquisition will give AMD "a world-class team of researchers and model experts to AMD, strengthening its ability to develop AI hardware, software and systems around the needs of emerging models and applications."

AMD will also advance its strategy to deliver a full AI stack in an open ecosystem. If that sounds familiar that's because Nvidia is doing the same thing and has extended into open models with Nemotron and has a foothold in robotics.

World Labs and AMD have been partners on model training and inference on AMD GPUs.

CEO Dr. Lisa Su said AMD is betting on the next-gen advances in models. "Fei-Fei and the World Labs team bring exceptional research leadership and model expertise. Together, we can use that insight to develop the hardware, software and systems that will power the next generation of AI," said Su.

Li added that the next generation of AI requires "close collaboration across model research, systems and compute" and AMD will give it knowhow and depth in compute and systems.

World Labs will continue its research on AI models and Li will report to Su. In a blog post, Li added:

"The research and technical breakthroughs we achieved at World Labs in such a short amount of time have only fueled our ambition and given us a clear vision for the potential for AI to solve spatial and physical world problems. Now that we have tangible proof of the possibilities, we want to do everything we can to accelerate the future.

To do this requires scaling our efforts, widening our reach, and getting closer to the hardware. Without having a focused hardware effort, AI is hobbled in efficiency. And scale. And for our purposes, remains trapped in the digital world.

Which brings me to AMD."