Kakao’s AI unit reveals Karlo 2.0 to create high-quality images in 3 seconds

Karlo 1.4 and Karlo 2.0 [Photo provided by Kakao Brain]

Kakao Corp.’s artificial intelligence (AI) research subsidiary Kakao Brain announced on Monday the release of Karlo 2.0, a large image generation AI model that can produce lifelike images in just three seconds.

Karlo 2.0 is an AI model trained on a massive dataset of approximately 300 million text and image samples. Kakao Brain is the only company in South Korea currently offering an image generation AI service based on its proprietary model.

According to the company, Karlo 2.0 boasts the ability to create highly refined images based on its world-class language comprehension capabilities. Even when given complex prompts such as a cat with bright blue eyes, the model can understand and generate the desired image accurately. It supports a maximum resolution of 2048x2048 pixels.

“Higher image resolutions allow for greater versatility in working with different sizes, enabling users to create more detailed and intricate images,” the company said.

Kakao Brain has made the application programming interface (API) of Karlo 2.0 available on Kakao Developers to foster the development of the domestic AI ecosystem.

Along with the release of the Karlo 2.0 API, Kakao Brain has expanded the monthly quota for free generated images from a maximum of 500 images in Karlo 1.4 to 600,000 images per month. By offering the world’s largest number of free generated images for startups and developers, Kakao Brain aims to support the creation of various value-added applications utilizing the Karlo technology.