NCSoft says new VARCO AI tools will help devs realize their creativity

Guild Wars 2 publisher NCSoft has developed and released a collection of AI language models called VARCO LLMs to help developers create new content including images, texts, and digital humans.

VARCO is described by NCsoft as a brand containing models, products, and services built on its AI language models. The South Korean company says the acronym stands for 'Via AI, Realize your Creative Originality."

"The large language models (LLMs) operated under VARCO can be classified into four categories: Foundation, Prompt, Dialogue, and Generative models," explained NCSoft. "The performance of the models in each of those categories depends on the size of their parameters."

NCSoft throws weight behind generative AI tools

VARCO is being used to power three generative AI services including a text-to-image generation tool called VARCO Art; a text generation and management tool called VARCO Text; and an integrated tool for creating, editing, and managing digital humans called VARCO Human.

Those tools will collectively be known as VARCO Studio, and NCSoft claims all three will be able to "improve efficiency" across their specific disciplines.

The publisher has already launched the first small and medium-sized VARCO LLMs for the Korean language market, and plans to unveil a Korean-English bilingual model later this month.

A one-month free trial of VARCO is being offered via Amazon SageMaker Jumpstart, a machine learning hub comprising foundational models, built-in algorithms, and prebuilt machine learning solutions.

Following the launch of VARCO, NCSoft will further accelerate AI research and business projects. 

"VARCO demonstrates the highest level of performance among other Korean models of similar sizes available to date," said NCSoft chief research officer, Jehee Lee. "NCSoft will leverage VARCO to offer new original value and experiences in various domains as well as game content development."