Researchers have unveiled a new AI video generation technique called TurboDiffusion that can create synthetic videos almost instantly. It can generate AI videos up to 200 times faster than existing methods without sacrificing visual quality.
The work is a joint effort between ShengShu Technology, Tsinghua University and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. According to its developers, the system is designed to dramatically reduce the time it takes to generate video, a process that has traditionally been slow and computationally intensive.
TurboDiffusion sets a new speed benchmark
When tested on a consumer PC with Nvidia’s RTX 5090 graphics card, TurboDiffusion reduced the time required to generate a 5-second video clip in standard definition from more than three minutes to just 1.9 seconds. For high-resolution clips of the same length, the time dropped from nearly 80 minutes to just 24 seconds, a roughly 200x improvement.
Current tools like Shengshu’s Vidu and OpenAI’s Sora still require several minutes to create short video clips. Instead of waiting hours for short clips to render, creators could create usable videos in seconds or minutes.
TurboDiffusion can solve a major bottleneck in AI video generation by drastically reducing computation time. This acceleration could enable faster animation, filmmaking and content creation workflows without compromising on quality.
What near-instant AI video means next
This breakthrough also suggests that the era of real-time or near-instant AI video creation may be closer than many had expected. But it also raises familiar concerns. Faster video generation may also increase the onslaught of deepfake-style content.
As the production of AI-generated videos becomes faster and more cost-effective, questions about verification, misuse and safeguards are likely to intensify, especially on platforms that already struggle with AI weaknesses.
TurboDiffusion comes as other AI video tools continue to evolve. Google’s Flow Video Creator, which adds richer creative controls, and Adobe’s Firefly, which expands to text-based video editing and native video generation in Premiere Pro, underscore how quickly the market is changing.
