On September 28, 2026, World Labs wrote that it has signed a definitive agreement to join AMD. The announcement also says the company was founded in 2024. The stated reasons for joining are to scale the work, scale the reach, and get closer to the hardware. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The announcement does not state a price.

The Verge reported the same day that the deal is all stock and worth approximately $8.2 billion. The Verge says the close is expected by the end of the year. The year matches. The wording does not. Neither piece says the deal has closed.

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Silverpoint: two workshops share one beam, and the beam is not finished.
Two benches stand together. The roof beam stops halfway. That is an agreement signed and a closing not finished. An illustration, not a photograph., AI-generated illustration, not a news photograph

The World Labs announcement says Fei-Fei Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist, working directly with CEO Lisa Su. The Verge says she will report to Lisa Su. Both wordings are kept. One is not rewritten into the other.

Justin Johnson and Ben Mildenhall will keep leading the team with her. The announcement says a technical partnership began last year, starting with model training and inference optimization on AMD GPUs. The stated aim after joining is an end-to-end open ecosystem spanning hardware, software, platforms, and widely accessible open models.

The Verge adds product facts that this World Labs post does not: World Labs launched in 2024 and was valued at $1 billion within months, and in 2025 it launched Marble, a world-generation model that makes interactive 3D worlds from a prompt. The report says the team will continue model research. It also quotes AMD saying the acquisition strengthens work on hardware, software, and systems around emerging models and applications.

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The $8.2 billion figure, the $1 billion valuation, and Marble appear in The Verge and not in this World Labs announcement. This piece did not open a regulatory filing or Fei-Fei Li’s Substack. Statements about the future are not written as events that have already happened.

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要点

  • The company says a definitive agreement is signed, with closing expected by the end of 2026 if regulators approve.
  • Fei-Fei Li will be EVP and chief scientist. World Labs says she will work directly with Lisa Su. The Verge says she will report to Su.
  • The $8.2 billion figure, the $1 billion valuation, and Marble come only from The Verge.
  • The deal is not closed. Last year’s work was training and inference on AMD GPUs.