Supermicro announces acquisition of World Labs founded by AI godmother Li Feifei for US$8.2 billion

Super Micro announced the acquisition of World Labs, a startup company founded by AI godmother Li Feifei, for US$8.2 billion. (Reuters photo)

[Financial Channel/Comprehensive Report] Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced on Monday (28th) that it will acquire World Labs, an AI startup company owned by Stanford University professor Li Feifei, known as the "Godmother of AI", for US$8.2 billion (approximately NT$261.334 billion). This move will allow the chip manufacturer to gain a foothold in the research field of physical AI systems that can understand and simulate the world.

"Reuters" reported that the acquisition will give AMD access to research in the field of spatial intelligence, an emerging field focused on enabling AI systems to simulate three-dimensional environments and physical interactions, which may affect future demand for chips, software and AI infrastructure.

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Li Feifei posted on LinkedIn that the team began in-depth technical cooperation with AMD last year, starting with model training on AMD's GPUs to optimize inference. As the teams collaborated, both parties realized that it was "natural" to integrate each other's AI ecosystems, including software and hardware, basic models and applications.

World Labs raised US$1 billion (approximately NT$31.87 billion) in a fundraising round earlier this year, which also included investment from Advanced Micro Devices.

The technology is designed to help AI systems better understand and analyze the real world, with potential uses in robotics, simulation, design and other real-world applications. Supermicro said it hopes World Labs' research can provide a deeper understanding of the workload of emerging AI and help guide its technology roadmap in hardware, software and systems.

Feifei Li, an AI researcher known for her computer vision research, will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist after the transaction is completed, and will report directly to AMD CEO Su Zifeng. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026.

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