AMD agrees to buy Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for about $8.2bn in stock

AMD said on 28 September that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire World Labs, the AI model and research lab led by Dr. Fei-Fei Li. AMD's own release values the all-stock transaction at approximately $8.2 billion and expects it to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions.

After closing, the World Labs team keeps working on model research inside AMD, and Li joins as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. World Labs' own homepage now carries a “Joining AMD” notice dated the same day.

AMD's framing is that it wants to design hardware, software and systems around where models are heading, rather than buying a product line. That is a claim about strategy, and the release backs it with no numbers: it gives no share count, no exchange ratio and no expected effect on earnings.

The timing sits beside Nvidia's $150bn buyback increase, covered here yesterday. The two largest GPU vendors made very different capital moves in the same news cycle: one returning cash to shareholders, the other spending stock to own a research team. For AMD shareholders the practical questions — dilution and what the lab's research does for AMD's product roadmap — are not answered in anything AMD has published so far.

• Confirmed All-stock transaction valued at approximately $8.2bn, expected to close by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals. AMD Newsroom
• Confirmed Fei-Fei Li joins AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to Lisa Su. AMD Investor Relations
• Claimed AMD says the team will strengthen its ability to develop AI hardware, software and systems around emerging models. AMD Newsroom