Google unveils Gemma 4, expands lightweight open model lineup for developers

Google has introduced a new generation of its open AI models under the Gemma family, with the launch of Gemma 4. Google Deepmind chief executive Demis Hassabis confirmed the development in a post on X on Thursday.


The company described Gemma 4 as its “most capable open model” to date. Google released it in four variants, each designed for different levels of performance and hardware requirements: Effective 2B (E2B), Effective 4B (E4B), 26B Mixture of Experts (MoE) and 31B Dense.

Gemma 4 specifications

Gemma 4 variant Effective 2B (E2B) is a compact model with around 2 billion parameters. Effective 4B (E4B) is a slightly larger version with improved capability. The 26B Mixture of Experts (MoE) uses a specialised architecture and 31B Dense is the largest and most powerful version in the lineup, according to the company's blog post.


The post added that the 31B dense model ranks among the top-performing open models on widely used industry benchmarks.

Parameters refer to the number of adjustable values in a model; generally, more parameters allow for better performance but require more computing power.

The Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture is a technique where only a subset of the model’s components activates for each task. This improves efficiency by reducing the computation needed compared to traditional “dense” models, where all parameters are used every time.

Gemma 4 capabilities

The Gemma 4 model offers capabilities such as advanced reasoning, agentic workflows, coding, and support for over 140 languages. The models are also capable of solving complex mathematical problems and generating high-quality code, positioning them as potential local AI coding assistants.

A key emphasis of Gemma 4 is efficiency. Smaller and optimised models allow developers to run advanced AI systems on more modest hardware, including personal workstations or edge devices, rather than requiring large data centers.

This approach is intended to make “frontier-level” AI capabilities more accessible to a broader range of developers, the company mentioned.