Google Gemma: An AI Model Small Enough to Run on a Laptop

Google has launched its latest AI model Gemma, built from the same research and technology used to create its landmark Gemini models.

Released in two sizes, called Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, Google says Gemma is designed for small, work-based tasks such as chatbots or summarisations.

AI is continuing to transform the business landscape, with countless organisations integrating the technology into their operations. But while massive large language models like ChatGPT have prompted a generative AI (Gen AI) revolution, training these models requires extensive resources, with companies like Meta building out massive compute infrastructure to help support their Gen AI ambitions.

With less expansive models like Gemma, Google aims to provide a smaller, more focused experience for more specific use cases. According to Google, pre-trained and instruction-tuned Gemma models can run on a laptop, workstation or Google Cloud with easy deployment on Vertex AI and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

“At Google, we believe in making AI helpful for everyone,” the company said in an announcement. “Today, we’re excited to introduce a new generation of open models from Google to assist developers and researchers in building AI responsibly.”

Google Gemini model harnessing the power of Nvidia GPUs

Gemma is built for responsible AI development from the same research and technology used to create Gemini models, making it capable of being fine-tuned to suit a range of business use cases, in addition to running on a range of platforms.

Gemini, which debuted at the end of 2023, was described by the company as its largest and most capable model yet. The model boasts sophisticated multi-modal capabilities and can master human-style conversations, language and content, in addition to understanding and interpreting images, code and data and analytics for developers to create new AI models.

The model has since been rolled out on a wider scale, with the company’s conversational chatbot Bard being rebranded to Gemini.

Google and the Google DeepMind teams have worked to ensure that the AI is responsible by design, having undergone copious amounts of research to consider both opportunities and risks that Gemma can bring to users.

In line with this, the organisation has also released a new Responsible Generative AI Toolkit alongside the Gemma launch to help developers and researchers prioritise building safe and responsible AI applications. 

Gemma is also optimised across its hardware, with Google partnering with Nvidia to utilise its GPUs to ensure industry-leading performance from data centres to the cloud. The models are also able to run across a range of devices, including laptops, desktops, IoT, mobile and the cloud - ultimately to enable AI that is broadly accessible.

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