Create, Enhance, Chat: Intel’s AI Playground Beta Showcases Arc GPU Potential

At this year’s COMPUTEX in Taipei, Intel unveiled an introductory artificial intelligence suite named AI Playground, allowing users to experience a variety of AI-related functionalities. They have now released a Beta version for download, which includes AI graphics generation, enhancement features, and a chatbot suite, requiring users to have at least an Arc discrete graphics card with 8GB of VRAM.

AI Playground is completely free and comes as a packaged installer that can be deployed with a single click. It is based on the Intel OpenVINO framework, effectively leveraging the XMX cores within the Arc A-series discrete GPUs. Currently, only a version for Arc discrete GPUs has been released, necessitating an Intel discrete GPU with over 8GB of VRAM, including the Arc A580, A750, and A770 models. Intel is also preparing a version for Core Ultra processors that can utilize a combination of NPU and integrated graphics acceleration.

The AI Playground tools encompass a graphics generation AI, supporting image creation, enhancement, and processing functionalities. At present, it employs Stable Diffusion 1.5 and SDXL, with users able to download additional models. The suite includes several built-in modules such as DreamShaper 8, Juggernaut XL, Phi3, LCM LoRA, and LCM LoRA SDXL.

Additionally, it features an integrated large language model chatbot. During installation, the application will prompt users to install the necessary models for specific tasks, allowing for the download of particular models, and thereby enhancing the application’s versatility. The installer package itself is 700MB in size, with the final required installation space significantly increasing depending on the selected models.