AMD to Acquire AI Company World Labs for $8.2 Billion

Chipmaker AMD and global model company World Labs announced that AMD will acquire the AI company by the end of the year, pending regulatory approval. The deal is valued at $8.2 billion.

World Labs was founded by leading AI researchers

In 2024, computer vision scientist Fei-Fei Li, along with fellow researchers Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner, and Ben Mildenhall, raised $230 million to found World Labs. AMD provided part of that funding.

World Labs began developing a new type of world model, an AI system designed to create useful predictive simulations of the physical world. Competing architectures also exist, although many require training on vast amounts of video data.

World Labs develops AI models for 3D spaces

World Labs’ first publicly available tool, Marble, can generate small 3D spaces using Gaussian splats. The resulting 3D assets can be exported for use in film production, game development, and other applications.

The company has since introduced additional models and tools with different focuses and use cases, including Atlas.

AMD targets synthetic data and robotics

One potential use case for world models is generating synthetic data to train robots. This is an area where AMD’s direct competitor, Nvidia, has a significant lead.

AMD has created its own AI models in the past. Its open-source Micro World model has not produced a stack that competes with Nvidia’s Cosmos and related models and applications.