AI art generators usually run with the help of a beefy PC graphics card or a data center, but Qualcomm has come up with a way to run one using only an Android smartphone.
On Thursday, the company debuted a demo that shows the AI art generator Stable Diffusion running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, which is now in smartphones including the Samsung Galaxy S23 series.
In the demo, Qualcomm submits a text prompt, and requests that Stable Diffusion create an image of “super cute fluffy cat warrior in armor.” The AI-powered program does just that, tapping the Snapdragon processor to generate the image in a mere 14.4 seconds, or close to the same speed of a PC desktop running Stable Diffusion.
The demo was achieved through “quantization,” which involves shrinking down the AI computing model for Stable Diffusion, and optimizing it to run on Qualcomm’s latest smartphone chip.
“Quantization not only increases performance but also saves power by allowing the model to efficiently run on our dedicated AI hardware and to consume less memory bandwidth,” the company said in the announcement.
“The techniques were applied across all the component models in Stable Diffusion, namely the transformer-based text encoder, the VAE decoder, and the UNet. This was critical for the model to fit on the device,” Qualcomm added. The result can generate AI-created images at 512-by-512 pixels, the same default output for Stable Diffusion.
The company didn't say if or when it’ll bring Stable Diffusion to Android smartphones, or if the implementation has certain limitations. But the demo highlights how Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon processor can run intensive AI computer models on a handheld device, rather than relying on a third-party app or website. The same capabilities also work on laptops and augmented reality or VR headsets that use Qualcomm technologies.
“There are a growing number of Stable Diffusion applications, such as image editing, in-painting, style transfer, super-resolution, and more that will offer a real impact,” Qualcomm added. “Being able to run the model completely on the device without the need for an internet connection will bring endless possibilities.”
UPDATE: In a statement, Qualcomm added: “Stable Diffusion on Snapdragon is a research and technology demonstration today. It can run on devices powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and we do plan to bring it and other generative AI models to devices powered by Snapdragon in the future. We are also making continuous updates to the Qualcomm AI Stack to enable the ecosystem to deploy emerging models.”