A Grothendieck universe is known in set theory as the set Vκ for a (strongly) inaccessible cardinal κ. They are exactly the same thing. Thus, the existence of a Grothendieck universe is exactly equivalent to the existence of one inaccessible cardinal. These cardinals and the corresponding universes have been studied in set theory for over a century.
The Grothendieck Universe axiom (AU) is the assertion that every set is an element of a universe in this sense. Thus, it is equivalent to the assertion that the inaccessible cardinals are unbounded in the cardinals. In other words, that there is a proper class of inaccessible cardinals. This is the axiom you sought, which is exactly equivalent to AU. In this sense, the axiom AU is a statement in set theory, having nothing necessarily to do with category theory.
The large cardinal axioms are fruitfully measured in strength not just by direct implication, but also by their consistency strength. One large cardinal property LC1 is stronger than another LC2 in consistency strength if the consistency of ZFC with an LC1 large cardinal implies the consistency of ZFC with an LC2 large cardinal.
Measured in this way, the AU axiom has a stronger consistency strength than the existence of any finite or accessible number of inaccessible cardinals, and so one might think it rather strong. But actually, it is much weaker than the existence of a single Mahlo cardinal, the traditional next-step-up in the large cardinal hierarchy. The reason is that if κ is Mahlo, then κ is a limit of inaccessible cardinals, and so Vκ will satisfy ZFC plus the AU axiom. The difference between AU and Mahloness has to do with the thickness of the class of inaccessible cardinals. For example, strictly stronger than AU and weaker than a Mahlo cardinal is the assertion that the inaccessible cardinals form a stationary proper class, an assertion known as the Levy Scheme (which is provably equivconsistent with some other interesting axioms of set theory, such as the boldface Maximality Principle, which I have studied a lot). Even Mahlo cardinals are regarded as rather low in the large cardinal hierarchy, far below the weakly compact cardinals, Ramsey cardinals, measurable cardinals, strong cardinals and supercompact cardinals. In particular, if δ is any of these large cardinals, then δ is a limit of Mahlo cardinals, and certainly a limit of strongly inaccessible cardinals. So in particular, Vδ will be a model of the AU axiom.
Rather few of the large cardinal axioms imnply AU directly, since most of them remain true if one were to cut off the universe at a given inaccessible cardinal, a process that kills AU. Nevertheless, implicit beteween levels of the large caridnal hiearchy are the axioms of the same form as AU, which assert an unbounded class of the given cardinal. For example, one might want to have unboundedly many Mahlo cardinals, or unboundedly many measurable cardinals, and so on. And the consistency strength of these axioms is still below the consistency strength of a single supercompact cardinal. The hierarchy is extremely fine and intensely studied. For example, the assertion that there are unboundedly many strong cardinals is equiconsistent with the impossiblity to affect projective truth by forcing. The existence of a proper class of Woodin cardinals is particularly robust set-theoretically, and all of these axioms are far stronger than AU.
There are natural weakenings of AU that still allow for almost all if not all of what category theorists do with these universes. Namely, with the universes, it would seem to suffice for almost all category-theoretic purposes, if a given universe U were merely a model of ZFC, rather than Vκ for an inaccessible cardinal κ. The difference is that U is merely a model of the Power set axiom, rather than actually being closed under the true power sets (and similarly using Replacement in place of regularity). The weakening of AU I have in mind is the axiom that asserts that every set is an element of a transitive model of ZFC. This assertion is strictly weaker in consistency strength thatn even a single inaccessible cardinal. One can get much lower, if one weakens the concept of universe to just a fragment of ZFC. Then one could arrive at a version of AU that was actually provable in ZFC, but which could be used for most all of the applications in cateogory theory to my knowledge. In this sense, ZFC itself is a kind of large cardinal axiom relative to the weaker fragments of ZFC.
Most of the arguments previously presented take a set-theoretic/logical point of view and apply to large cardinal axioms in general. There's a lot of good stuff there, but I think there are additional things to be said about Vopěnka's principle specifically from a category-theoretic point of view.
One formulation of Vopěnka's principle (which is the one that I'm used to calling "the" category-theoretic definition, and the one used as the definition in Adamek&Rosicky's book, although there are many category-theoretic statements equivalent to VP) is that there does not exist a large (= proper-class-sized) full discrete (= having no nonidentity morphims between its objects) subcategory of any locally presentable category. I think there is a good argument to be made for the naturalness of this from a category-theoretic perspective.
To explain why, let me back up a bit. To a category theorist of a certain philosophical bent, one thing that category theory teaches us is to avoid talking about equalities between objects of a category, rather than isomorphism. For instance, in doing group theory, we never talk about when two groups are equal, only when they are isomorphic. Likewise in doing topology, we never talk about when two spaces are equal, only when they are homeomorphic. Once you get used to this, it starts to feel like an accident that it even makes sense to ask whether two groups are equal, rather than merely isomorphic. And in fact, it is an accident, or at least dependent on the particular choice of axioms for a set-theoretic foundation; one can give other axiomatizations of set theory, provably equivalent to ZFC, in which it doesn't make sense to ask whether two sets are equal, only whether two elements of a given ambient set are equal. These are sometimes called "categorial" set theories, since the first example was Lawvere's ETCS which axiomatizes the category of sets, but I prefer to call them structural set theories, since there are other versions, like SEAR, which don't require any category theory.
Now there do exist categories in which it does make sense to talk about "equality" of objects. For instance, any set X can be regarded as a discrete category $X_d$, whose objects are the elements of X and in which the only morphisms are identities. Moreover, a category is equivalent to one of the form $X_d$, for some set X, iff it is both a groupoid and a preorder, i.e. every morphism is invertible and any parallel pair of morphisms are equal. I call such a category a "discrete category," although some people use that only for the stricter notion of a category isomorphic to some $X_d$. So it becomes tempting to think that one might instead consider "category" to be a fundamental notion, and define "set" to mean a discrete category.
Unfortunately, however, what I wrote in the previous paragraph is false: a category is equivalent to one of the form $X_d$, for some set X, iff it is a groupoid and a preorder and small. We can just as well construct a category $X_d$ when X is a proper class, and it will of course still be discrete. In fact, just as a set is the same thing as a small discrete category, a proper class is the same thing as a large discrete category. However, this feels kind of bizarre, because the large categories that arise in practice are almost never of the sort that admit a meaningful notion of "equality" between their objects, and in particular they are almost never discrete. Consider the categories of groups, or rings, or topological spaces, or sets for that matter. Outside of set theory, proper classes usually only arise as the class of objects of some large category, which is almost never discrete. The world would make much more sense, from a category-theoretic point of view, if there were no such things as proper classes, a.k.a. discrete large categories --- then we could define "set" to mean "discrete category" and life would be beautiful.
Unfortunately, we can't have large categories without having large discrete categories, at least not without restricting the rest of mathematics fairly severly. This is obviously true if we found mathematics on ZFC or NBG or some other traditional "membership-based" or "material" set theory, since there we need a proper class of objects before we can even define a large category. But it's also true if we use a structural set theory, since there are a few naturally and structurally defined large categories that are discrete, such as the category of well-orderings and all isomorphisms between them (the core of the full subcategory of Poset on the well-orderings).
Thus Vopěnka's principle, as I stated it above, is a weakened version of the thesis that large discrete categories don't exist: it says that at least they can't exist as full subcategories of locally presentable categories. Since locally presentable categories are otherwise very well-behaved, this is at least reasonable to hope for. In fact, from this perspective, if Vopěnka's principle turns out to be inconsistent with ZFC, then maybe it is ZFC that is at fault! (-:
Best Answer
Yes, a Vopenka cardinal can be weakly compact, at least assuming the consistency of a huge cardinal (though this is certainly a bit of an overkill). A huge cardinal is a weakly compact (in fact, measurable) Vopenka cardinal.
EDIT: Actually almost huge cardinals suffice to get measurable Vopenka cardinals. Theorem 24.18 of Kanamori's "Higher Infinite" says that if $\kappa$ is almost huge, then there is a normal ultrafilter $U$ on $\kappa$ such that there are $U$-many $\alpha < \kappa$ such that $\alpha$ is a Vopenka cardinal. The argument actually shows that there are $U$-many $\alpha$ such that $\alpha$ is Vopenka AND measurable. To see why, note that part (b) of that theorem follows from the fact that if $j: V \to M$ witnesses the almost-hugeness of $\kappa$, then $M \models$ "$\kappa$ is Vopenka". But $M$ also models "$\kappa$ is measurable" (in fact $U$ itself is in $M$), because
EDIT 2 (regarding Tim's comment): actually $\kappa$ itself is a Vopenka cardinal, because ``$\kappa$ is a Vopenka cardinal" is absolute between any transitive models that have the same powerset of $\kappa$ (and $V$ and $M$ in the above argument have the same powerset of $\kappa$, and $M$ believes that $\kappa$ is a Vopenka cardinal).