I didn’t intend to write about AMD two days in a row, but sometimes the news has plans of its own. Yesterday, the AI chipmaker revealed it will acquire World Labs for $8.2 billion.
In case you’re not keeping track of all the players behind these companies, AMD is led by CEO Lisa Su and World Labs was cofounded by Fei-Fei Li, also known as the godmother of AI. That makes this an extremely rare AI deal between two of the women at the very top of this industry. Su was No. 3 on this year’s Most Powerful Women list, while Li was No. 45.
World Labs is a 2-year-old startup that is building AI for the physical world. As my colleague Alexei Oreskovic explains, its models “are trained on data such as video that depicts the physical, three-dimensional world … to create AI that understands how objects move in the physical world.” This will help AI extend to objects like humanoid robots. World Labs has raised $1 billion for this mission.
AMD and World Labs started a “deep technical partnership” last year—one that is helping AMD compete with Nvidia, which is also working on AI for the physical world. And now, Li will become EVP and chief scientist at AMD, reporting directly to Su.
Li and Su marked the occasion with a photo together, sitting at a table, smiling and signing deal terms. It’s an image that will stick with me as we enter uncharted waters in the AI race. We’re so used to seeing the AI technocrats together—Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai sitting alongside President Trump at the White House.
And here is an image of an alternate pathway. One where women aren’t the outlier at those gatherings (which Su has attended many of), but are designing their own future. Where they’re the ones at the very top, making the decisions, not just in that familiar No. 2 role.
Last week, AMD became the first company led by a female CEO with a market cap of more than $1 trillion. With this deal, we’re getting a taste of what Su can do with that power: identify the best opportunities for her business at CEO, and at the same time show us a version of the AI industry in which a small group of mostly white male oligarchs aren’t the only ones deciding humanity’s fate.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world.
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PARTING WORDS
"I don’t feel that I have to be anything that I’m not for anyone."
— Pop star Audrey Hobert