There just might be something to this physical AI stuff.
From CNBC, September 28:
- AMD said it agreed to acquire World Labs, a San Francisco-based AI lab developing a so-called world model.
- The chipmaker said it’s paying $8.2 billion in an all-stock transaction for World Labs.
- AI researchers hope that world models can help develop robots and other physically grounded artificial intelligence applications.
Advanced Micro Devices said Monday that it’s agreed to acquire World Labs, the San Francisco-based AI lab founded by industry pioneer Fei-Fei Li, for $8.2 billion.
The chipmaker, which previously invested in World Labs, said it’s paying for the startup in stock.
Li was a Stanford professor who previously worked for Google and led AI research. She will become AMD’s chief scientist and an executive vice president at AMD, which is chasing Nvidia in the market for AI processors.
World Labs is developing a so-called world model, which can be used to simulate 3D environments. In a demo presented by Li and AMD CEO Lisa Su earlier this year, the two executives showed a World Labs model called Marble creating a 3D scene out of a few images.
“Intelligent agents, whether it’s robots or vehicles or even tools, can learn inside very rich physics-aware digital worlds before they even need to be deployed into the real one, making them much safer,” Li said at the presentation....
....MUCH MORE
If interested, some of our prior links on Madame Li are in Saturday, September 26's AI: "World model companies are keeping a lot of secrets".
Our single-sentence opinion introducing January 2026's ""As artificial intelligence moves into real world, will physical AI pay off?":
Good question. Physical AI will probably pay off in ways that are measurable faster than chatbots will...
August 14 - "World Models Are AI’s Next Frontier"
August 15 - More On Physical AI: "How world models became AI's next frontier"
Nvidia's Jensen Huang has been very serious about physical AI for the last three years. Here's a February 2025 post:
Nvidia Plummets 8.5% On Ennui, Boredom (NVDA)
... On the other hand Observer jumps ahead to what will most likely be a theme for the next twelve - fifteen months and/or until Blackwell's replacement is rolling off TSMC's assembly lines. February 27:
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Predicts the Next Big Thing After ‘Agentic A.I’"Now is the beginning of the agentic A.I. era...then there's physical A.I. after that."
