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Gemma 4 26B A4B
- Text Generation
Gemma 4 26B A4B is a 26-billion-parameter multimodal Mixture-of-Experts model from Google’s Gemma 4 family, optimized for high-throughput reasoning with long context windows. It supports text and image inputs and is designed to run efficiently on modern GPUs and cloud platforms.
About the model
What is Gemma 4 26B A4B?
Gemma 4 26B A4B is a Google DeepMind Mixture-of-Experts language model with around 26B parameters (about 3.8B active) that supports long-context multimodal understanding. It is mainly used for text and image (and in some deployments video) analysis and generation in applications such as agents, coding assistants, and knowledge-intensive chat. It is also used for enterprise workloads that need high token throughput, long-context processing (around a 256K token window), and cost-efficient inference on commodity hardware. It belongs to the Gemma 4 open-weight model family, alongside smaller E2B/E4B variants and larger 12B and 31B models.
Model capabilities
5 Core Capabilities
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Conversational Chat
Engages in multi-turn, instruction-following dialogue, answering questions and following user directions while maintaining context and coherence.
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Code Assistance
Helps write, read, and reason about source code, suggesting corrections, explaining logic, and supporting common programming languages.
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Image Understanding
Interprets uploaded images, identifying objects, text, and visual relationships to support question answering and description tasks.
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Language Translation
Translates between major natural languages, preserving meaning and tone for general-purpose, non-specialized text content.
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Visual Text Extraction
Extracts readable text from images, enabling downstream processing like search, summarization, or translation of visual documents.
Use cases
6 Most Valuable Use Cases
- Customer Support Chatbots
- Financial Document Summarization
- Legal Knowledge Retrieval
- Compliance Case Monitoring
- E-commerce Product Assistance
- Code Generation and Review
Transparent pricing
Cost Comparison
LLM API offers the lowest cost and latency for Gemma 4–class 26B models
| Provider | Region | Latency | Throughput | Uptime | Input ($/1M) | Output ($/1M) | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LLM API BEST | Global | 120ms | 220 tps | 99.99% | $0.15 | $0.15 | 256K |
| Global | ~220ms | ~150 tps | 99.9% | ~$0.25 | ~$0.25 | 128K | |
| AWS Bedrock | US East | ~260ms | ~140 tps | 99.9% | ~$0.28 | ~$0.28 | 128K |
| Azure AI | EU West | ~250ms | ~130 tps | 99.9% | ~$0.30 | ~$0.30 | 128K |
| Anthropic Partner API | Global | ~240ms | ~160 tps | 99.95% | ~$0.32 | ~$0.32 | 200K |
Performance benchmarks
Technical Specifications
| Metric | Gemma 4 26B A4B (Google) | Llama 3.1 70B (Meta) | GPT-4.1 (OpenAI) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg Latency | ~180ms | ~220ms | ~200ms |
| Context Window | 128K | 128K | 128K |
| Input Price ($/1M) | ~$0.30 | ~$0.50 | ~$5.00 |
| Output Price ($/1M) | ~$0.60 | ~$0.80 | ~$15.00 |
| Max Output Tokens | 4K | 4K | 4K |
| Throughput | ~80 tps | ~60 tps | ~70 tps |
| Uptime | 99.9% | 99.9% | 99.9% |
30-day usage via LLM API
- 62B
- Prompt tokens processed (last 30 days)
- 51B
- Completion tokens generated (last 30 days)
- 3.6M
- API requests served (last 30 days)
- 99.8%
- Avg uptime (last 30 days)
Architecture & Integration
Why Build on LLM.API?
One unified API. Every major model. Built-in reliability, cost control, and observability.
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Unified AI Routing
Automatically route each request to the best model across providers based on cost, latency, or quality—without changing your integration.
One endpoint, every model -
Cost-Aware Control
Set explicit cost policies, caps, and model tiers so you never exceed budget while still unlocking premium models when they matter most.
Predictable AI spend -
Resilient Fallbacks
Define automatic cross-provider fallbacks so outages or quota limits never take your AI features down—no extra client logic required.
No single point of failure -
Deep Observability
Track latency, errors, tokens, and provider performance per route and project, with logs you can query directly from your existing monitoring stack.
See every token -
Task-Native Abstractions
Call high-level tasks like chat, embed, rerank, and tools via a single schema while LLM.API handles provider-specific quirks under the hood.
One schema, any task -
High-Throughput Batching
Batch thousands of requests across models and tasks in a single call to maximize throughput, minimize overhead, and cut per-request costs.
Scale without bottlenecks
Decision guide
When to Use — When NOT to Use
Use it if...
- You need a mid-size open-weight model with solid general reasoning and language capabilities.
- You need a Google-aligned model that integrates well with Google Cloud tooling and infrastructure.
- Your use case involves moderate-length chatbots, assistants, or agents with fluent English responses.
- Your use case involves fine-tuning or adapting an open model for domain-specific tasks.
- You need cost-efficient inference with better quality than small models but below frontier pricing.
- Your use case involves experimentation with quantization-friendly models optimized for A4 GPU configurations.
- You need an open model whose weights can be self-hosted for compliance or data residency.
Avoid if...
- You need state-of-the-art performance comparable to Google’s largest proprietary Gemini or frontier models.
- Your workload requires extremely long-context processing, such as entire books or multi-hour transcripts.
- You need strong multimodal capabilities like image understanding, generation, or complex vision-language tasks.
- Your workload requires ultra-low latency, real-time streaming responses on constrained edge hardware.
- You need highly specialized reasoning in domains like cutting-edge science where top models excel.
- Your workload requires enterprise-grade support SLAs that are only available for Google proprietary models.
- You need tightly integrated product features only exposed through Gemini APIs or Google Workspace add-ons.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
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What is Gemma 4 26B A4B?
Gemma 4 26B A4B is a 26B-parameter Google Gemma 4 language model variant optimized for low-cost, 4-bit quantized inference via LLM.API.
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What is Gemma 4 26B A4B best suited for?
Gemma 4 26B A4B is best for general-purpose chat, code assistance, and knowledge-intensive tasks where strong reasoning is needed at moderate cost.
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What context window does Gemma 4 26B A4B support on LLM.API?
Gemma 4 26B A4B supports a 32,768 token context window for combined input and output on LLM.API.
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Does Gemma 4 26B A4B support images or other modalities?
Gemma 4 26B A4B is text-only and currently supports neither image input nor other multimodal capabilities via LLM.API.
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How fast is Gemma 4 26B A4B on LLM.API?
Latency depends on load and max_tokens, but 26B A4B is tuned for faster, cheaper decoding than full-precision 26B deployments.
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How is Gemma 4 26B A4B priced on LLM.API?
Pricing is usage-based per 1,000 tokens, with lower rates than larger Gemma 4 models; check the LLM.API pricing page for current numbers.
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How do I call Gemma 4 26B A4B through the LLM.API?
Select the Gemma 4 26B A4B model ID in your LLM.API request and send standard Chat Completions-style messages with temperature and max_tokens parameters.
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How does Gemma 4 26B A4B compare to larger Gemma models?
Gemma 4 26B A4B generally offers lower latency and cost but slightly weaker reasoning and coding performance than larger Gemma 4 variants.
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What are the main limitations of Gemma 4 26B A4B?
Limitations include potential hallucinations, lack of multimodal support, and no built-in browsing or tools, so outputs should be validated for critical use.
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Can Gemma 4 26B A4B handle long-running or streaming responses?
Yes, Gemma 4 26B A4B supports streaming responses via LLM.API, suitable for interactive chat or partial-output UIs.
