AMD Pursues $8.2 Billion World Labs Acquisition

Advanced Micro Devices is pursuing an approximately $8.2 billion acquisition of AI startup World Labs in an all-stock transaction, a proposed deal intended to help the chipmaker understand emerging artificial-intelligence workloads and use that knowledge in its hardware and software development. The transaction is projected to close by the end of 2026 if it proceeds as planned, but its completion has not been confirmed in the supplied reports. The reported strategy is to use World Labs’ research to inform AMD’s chipmaking roadmap, rather than to compete directly with companies developing AI models. World Labs has trained and run models on AMD GPUs for more than a year, and AMD invested in the startup in February 2026, according to one report. The planned purchase would build on that relationship. World Labs founder Fei-Fei Li is expected to join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to CEO Lisa Su, the report said. Because the deal is to be paid for with AMD shares, existing shareholders would own a smaller portion of the company after new shares are issued.