Artificial intelligence has become an integral part of modern smartphones, but it is still most often used in hybrid mode, where part of the processing takes place locally, while more demanding tasks rely on cloud infrastructure. With phones, this means that text is mostly processed on the device itself, while images and richer media content are generated or analyzed over the Internet, which raises privacy issues. This is exactly where Samsung could make a breakthrough with the upcoming Galaxy S26 model.
According to Korean media outlet Seoul Economic Daily, the Exynos 2600 chipset will be capable of running AI models to generate images from text directly on the device, without an internet connection. This feature, according to unofficial information, could be called EdgeFusion and is based on Stable Diffusion models. The development takes place in cooperation with the Korean AI company Nota AI, which specializes in optimizing less demanding models to work on the hardware that is built into the device itself.
Local image generation as an Exynos advantage
EdgeFusion is described as a specially adapted, “lightened” version of the Stable Diffusion model, optimized for the Exynos platform. The report states that this implementation even goes beyond what Qualcomm has previously demonstrated on Snapdragon chips. The key difference is that Qualcomm has so far mainly shown technical demonstrations, without real implementation in real devices, while Samsung could be the first to offer this possibility to end users.
A significant role in this is played by the improved 2 nm architecture of the Exynos 2600 chip, as well as a significantly stronger NPU unit intended for AI tasks. According to available information, the Exynos version of the Galaxy S26 could generate images with a resolution of 512 × 512 pixels in just a few seconds, completely locally.
For now, it is not known whether the same or similar functionality will be available on the Galaxy S26 models with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. Samsung normally tries to equalize the software functions between the Exynos and Snapdragon variants, but at the moment there is no confirmation that this will be the case here as well.
More details are expected at the end of February, when the official presentation of the Galaxy S26 series is expected. Until then, the Exynos version has at least one concrete technical advantage that makes it a more interesting choice, if only temporarily, reports Android Authority.