AMD acquires ‘godmother of AI’ Li Fei-Fei’s start-up as battle with Nvidia intensifies
US chip giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has agreed to acquire World Labs, the artificial intelligence start-up founded by renowned Chinese-American computer scientist Li Fei-Fei, for US$8.2 billion in an all-stock deal, as the company steps up its rivalry with Nvidia. The acquisition, expected to close by the end of this year, would integrate World Labs’ research team and spatial-intelligence…
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has reached an agreement to acquire World Labs, an artificial intelligence startup founded by Li Fei-Fei, for US$8.2 billion in an all-stock transaction. This move comes amid intensifying competition with Nvidia, which has also been making significant strides in the AI sector. Li Fei-Fei, widely recognized as the "godmother of AI" due to her creation of the ImageNet database while at Stanford University, will assume the roles of executive vice-president and chief scientist at AMD, reporting directly to CEO Lisa Su.
World Labs, established in 2024, specializes in spatial intelligence, focusing on developing advanced models that can perceive, generate, and reconstruct 3D environments. This technology is crucial for applications in robotics and physical AI, where interaction with the real world is essential. Recently, World Labs unveiled Atlas, a model capable of processing text, images, video, and 3D data to generate new scene views based on spatial relationships.
The acquisition surpasses the $5 billion valuation that World Labs sought in a recent funding round, making it a significant investment. AMD, which was an investor in World Labs' Series B round, sees the acquisition as a strategic fit, integrating the two companies' hardware and software capabilities. AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, emphasized that the deal will enable the company to enhance its AI offerings by combining hardware, software, foundation models, and applications.
This acquisition is seen as a direct challenge to Nvidia, which has recently acquired the open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $12.93 billion. Hugging Face plays a pivotal role in the open-source AI ecosystem, serving over 18 million developers, researchers, and creators. The deal highlights the growing competition within the AI industry, with AMD potentially gaining a significant foothold by complementing its hardware offerings with advanced AI software and applications.
Written by urgent.news from SCMP Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
This story
This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.
- AMD acquires startup founded by ‘godmother of AI’ Fei-Fei Li for $8.2 billion fortune.com
- AMD buys firm founded by AI 'godmother' Fei-Fei Li gulfnews.com
- AMD acquires ‘godmother of AI’ Li Fei-Fei’s start-up as battle with Nvidia intensifies scmp.com
- AMD buys firm founded by AI ‘godmother’ Fei-Fei Li freemalaysiatoday.com
- AMD buys ‘Godmother of AI’ Fei-Fei Li’s firm for US$8.2b malaymail.com
