Model reference · open weights

gemma-4-assistant

LLMs google Omni (any→any) · MoE 5 builds Open weights 545k dl/mo

gemma-4-assistant is an open-weight language model from Google. gemma-4-E4B-it-assistant (BF16) weighs 159 MB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 3060 12 GB.

  • Gemma 4 31B IT Assistant is a 470M parameter draft model developed by Google for use in speculative decoding pipelines with the Gemma 4 31B target model.
  • It predicts multiple tokens ahead to accelerate inference by up to 3x while maintaining identical output quality, making it suitable for low-latency and on-device applications.
  • The model is released under the Apache 2.0 license and supports a context window of up to 256K tokens.

Summary of the google/gemma-4-31B-it-assistant model card, 2026-10-01. The estimate below is for another build of the family.

What it is

Released byGoogle
Released2026-04-23
Parameters470M
VRAM159 MB for the weights

What it runs on

Memory and cards for gemma-4-E4B-it-assistant (BF16)

159 MBweights, file size
2 MBcache per 1K tokens
28 MBwindow cache per request
719 MBruntime overhead, at least
131,072 tokenscontext max
CardRequests at onceContext maxMemory
8K each32K each
RTX 3060 12 GB238112all 128K11.6 GB
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB322152all 128K15.4 GB
RTX 3090 24 GB499236all 128K23.4 GB
RTX 4090 24 GB498235all 128K23.4 GB
RTX 5090 32 GB668315all 128K31.0 GB
L40S 48 GB955451all 128K44.0 GB
A100 80 GB1000+810all 128K78.2 GB
H100 80 GB1000+421all 128K78.1 GB
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GB1000+513all 128K93.8 GB
DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unified1000+592all 128K107 GB
H200 141 GB1000+772all 128K138 GB
B200 180 GB1000+633all 128K176 GB
Memory needed at each load
Requests at once8K tokens each32K tokens each
1923 MB973 MB
51.1 GB1.4 GB
81.2 GB1.6 GB
161.6 GB2.4 GB
322.3 GB3.9 GB
643.8 GB7.0 GB

One card, with vLLM's small-card settings.

Builds

Sizes, precisions & builds

BuildParamsPrecisionWeightsSmallest setup
gemma-4-31B-it-assistant ↗ 470MBF16 939 MBRTX 3060 12 GB
gemma-4-26B-A4B-it-assistant ↗ 420MBF16 839 MBRTX 3060 12 GB
gemma-4-E4B-it-assistant (above) ↗ 79MBF16 159 MBRTX 3060 12 GB
gemma-4-12B-it-assistant ↗ 423MBF16 846 MBRTX 3060 12 GB
gemma-4-E2B-it-assistant ↗ 78MBF16 158 MBRTX 3060 12 GB

From the model card

What Google says about gemma-4-assistant

Read the model card

[!Note] This model card is for the Multi-Token Prediction (MTP) drafters for the Gemma 4 models. MTP is implemented by extending the base model with a smaller, faster draft model. When used in a Speculative Decoding pipeline, the draft model predicts several tokens ahead, which the target model then verifies in parallel. This results in significant decoding speedups (up to 3x) while guaranteeing the exact same quality as standard generation, making these checkpoints perfect for low-latency and on-device applications.

Gemma is a family of open models built by Google DeepMind. Gemma 4 models are multimodal, handling text and image input (with audio supported on E2B, E4B, and 12B) and generating text output. This release includes open-weights models in both pre-trained and instruction-tuned variants. Gemma 4 features a context window of up to 256K tokens and maintains multilingual support in over 140 languages.

Featuring both Dense and Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architectures, Gemma 4 is well-suited for tasks like text generation, coding, and reasoning. The models are available in five distinct sizes: E2B, E4B, 12B, 26B A4B, and 31B. Their diverse sizes make them deployable in environments ranging from high-end phones to laptops and servers, democratizing access to state-of-the-art AI.

Gemma 4 introduces key capability and architectural advancements:

  • Reasoning – All models in the family are designed as highly capable reasoners, with configurable thinking modes.

  • Extended Multimodalities – Processes Text, Image with variable aspect ratio and resolution support (all models), Video, and Audio (featured natively on the E2B, E4B, and 12B models).

  • Diverse & Efficient Architectures – Offers Dense and Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) variants of different sizes for scalable deployment.

  • Optimized for On-Device – Smaller models are specifically designed for efficient local execution on laptops and mobile devices.

  • Increased Context Window – The small models feature a 128K context window, while the medium models support 256K.

  • Enhanced Coding & Agentic Capabilities – Achieves notable improvements in coding benchmarks alongside native function-calling support, powering highly capable autonomous agents.

  • Native System Prompt Support – Gemma 4 introduces native support for the system role, enabling more structured and controllable conversations.

Models Overview

Gemma 4 models are designed to deliver frontier-level performance at each size, targeting deployment scenarios from mobile and edge devices (E2B, E4B) to consumer GPUs and workstations (12B, 26B A4B, 31B). They are well-suited for reasoning, agentic workflows, coding, and multimodal understanding.

The models employ a hybrid attention mechanism that interleaves local sliding window attention with full global attention, ensuring the final layer is always global. This hybrid design delivers the processing speed and low memory footprint of a lightweight model without sacrificing the deep awareness required for complex, long-context tasks. To optimize memory for long contexts, global layers feature unified Keys and Values, and apply Proportional RoPE (p-RoPE).

Dense Models

PropertyE2BE4B12B Unified31B Dense
Total Parameters2.3B effective (5.1B with embeddings)4.5B effective (8B with embeddings)11.95B30.7B
Layers35424860
Sliding Window512 tokens512 tokens1024 tokens1024 tokens
Context Length128K tokens128K tokens256K tokens256K tokens
Vocabulary Size262K262K262K262K
Supported ModalitiesText, Image, AudioText, Image, AudioText, Image, AudioText, Image
Vision Encoder Parameters~150M~150M-~550M
Audio Encoder Parameters~300M~300M-No Audio

The "E" in E2B and E4B stands for "effective" parameters. The smaller models incorporate Per-Layer Embeddings (PLE) to maximize parameter efficiency in on-device deployments. Rather than adding more layers or parameters to the model, PLE gives each decoder layer its own small embedding for every token. These embedding tables are large but are only used for quick lookups, which is why the effective parameter count is much smaller than the total.

The "Unified" in Gemma 4 12B Unified refers to its encoder-free architecture. Other Gemma 4 models use dedicated encoders to process multimodal data before passing it to the LLM. Gemma 4 12B eliminates these encoders entirely, projecting raw image patches and audio waveforms directly into the LLM's embedding space through lightweight linear layers. This unified approach means all modalities flow straight into a single decoder-only transformer, reducing multimodal latency and allowing the entire model to be fine-tuned in one pass.

Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) Model

Property26B A4B MoE
Total Parameters25.2B
Active Parameters3.8B
Layers30
Sliding Window1024 tokens
Context Length256K tokens
Vocabulary Size262K
Expert Count8 active / 128 total and 1 shared
Supported ModalitiesText, Image
Vision Encoder Parameters~550M

The "A" in 26B A4B stands for "active parameters" in contrast to the total number of parameters the model contains. By only activating a 4B subset of parameters during inference, the Mixture-of-Experts model runs much faster than its 26B total might suggest. This makes it an excellent choice for fast inference compared to the dense 31B model since it runs almost as fast as a 4B-parameter model.

Benchmark Results

These models were evaluated against a large collection of different datasets and metrics to cover different aspects of text generation. Evaluation results marked in the table are for instruction-tuned models.

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Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face. The full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.

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