AMD to Acquire 3D Spatial AI Company World Labs; Fei-Fei Li to Join
The all-stock deal is worth roughly $8.2 billion and is targeted to close by the end of 2026. AMD gains both the technology for generating 3D spaces and the research team behind it, as it moves into AI for robotics and simulation.
AMD announced on September 28 (local time) that it is acquiring World Labs, an AI company that generates 3D spaces. The purchase price is roughly $8.2 billion in AMD stock. The agreement was signed on September 26, and conditions remain before the transaction can close, including regulatory approval. The two companies expect the acquisition to be completed by the end of 2026.
What AMD Gets
AMD said it will work with World Labs researchers to develop chips and software tailored to a new class of AI workloads. That covers not only the process by which AI generates answers, but also robotics and simulation, where scenarios are tested in advance in virtual environments. Once the acquisition closes, founder Fei-Fei Li will join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist. Justin Johnson and Ben Mildenhall will continue to lead the World Labs team.
The two companies have already been working together. Since 2025, World Labs has been refining how its models are trained and run on AMD graphics processing units (GPUs). This deal takes that collaboration a step further by bringing the research organization itself inside AMD.
Marble: Turning Text and Photos Into 3D Spaces
World Labs’ existing service, Marble, converts material supplied by users into 3D spaces they can move around in. Inputs can include text, images and video, as well as simple 3D layouts. The resulting spaces can be edited, and they can be exported as 3D files or video. Creating a space and then refining and exporting the result are handled within a single service.
Marble has been open to general users for sign-up since November 2025. Access to the next-generation model, Atlas, is more limited. At the time of the September 2026 announcement, it was still at a stage where only select partners had early access. World Labs said it plans to bring Atlas to Marble going forward.
How It Differs From Nvidia’s Cosmos 3
Nvidia has also released Cosmos 3, an AI model for handling the physical world. Nvidia described it as bundling together the reasoning, world simulation and motion generation needed for robotics development. Another distinguishing feature is that Nvidia has made some versions available for developers to download directly. That is a different mode of use from Marble, where users create and edit 3D spaces inside the service itself.
What you should pick depends on what you are trying to do. Marble is a service with features for building and editing spaces, while Cosmos 3 is a model Nvidia has released for robotics development. Atlas remains available only to select partners. AMD’s announcement did not include figures showing how much product performance will improve, nor post-acquisition pricing or release dates.
In short, AMD is securing a 3D spatial AI research team so it can push chip and software development forward together. What users should watch next is when Atlas arrives in Marble, and how features and pricing change as a result.