Z-Image: Powerful and highly efficient image generation model with 6B parameters

We have vLLM for running text LLMs in production. What is the equivalent for this model?

I would say there's isn't an equivalent. Some people will probably tell you ComfyUI - you can expose workflows via API endpoints and parameterize them. This is how e.g. Krita AI Diffusion uses a ComfyUI backend.

For various reasons, I doubt there are any large scale SaaS-style providers operating this in production today.

I'm intrigued by the various reasons why you think there are not any large scale SAAS operating this in production?

i dont believe there is a viable use case for large scale AI-generated images as there is for text... except for porn, but many orgs with SAAS capabilities wouldn't touch that