Google Launches Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a Fast Gemini 4 Model It Says Is 2.5x Faster Than 3.8 Flash
Meet Gemini 4 Hydrogen: built for rapid coding, multimodal synthesis, and everyday workflows. It finishes tasks 2.5x faster than 3.8 Flash and surpasses Argon on the @ArtificialAnlys Intelligence Index.
Context
A new official Gemini 4 model is rolling out across Google products, giving everyday users and developers a faster option in the same family as Carbon and Argon.
Google DeepMind posted the launch of Gemini 4 Hydrogen, saying it is built for rapid coding, multimodal synthesis, and everyday workflows, finishes tasks 2.5x faster than 3.8 Flash, and surpasses Argon on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Sundar Pichai, Logan Kilpatrick, the main Google account, the Gemini app, and Google AI Studio also posted about the rollout, and Cursor said the model is available in Cursor.
- Google DeepMind launch post
- Logan Kilpatrick on where Gemini 4 Hydrogen is available
- Sundar Pichai on the launch
- Google post on Gemini 4 Hydrogen
- Gemini app post on the launch
- Google post on the Search rollout
- Cursor post on Gemini 4 Hydrogen in Cursor
- Demis Hassabis on the release
- Artificial Analysis on Gemini 4 Hydrogen benchmark results
Deep dive
Google DeepMind announced Gemini 4 Hydrogen on November 12, calling it a model built for rapid coding, multimodal synthesis, and everyday workflows. The company said it finishes tasks 2.5x faster than 3.8 Flash and surpasses Argon on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
Logan Kilpatrick said the model is available to all tiers of Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, Gemini for business, the Gemini app, Google Search, and paid Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in Google Antigravity. Sundar Pichai said it follows Carbon and Argon, is built for speed and efficiency for everyday tasks, coding and agentic workflows, and has 4 thinking levels, so users only wait and pay for the reasoning depth a task requires. The main Google account said the model can stand on its own or team up with Carbon and Argon, and later posted that Search is getting the model as well.
A chart attached to the DeepMind post compares Gemini 4 Hydrogen with Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT 6.1 Terra. In that chart, Hydrogen leads on several tests, including SWE sweep at 13.5%, Agents' Last Exam v1.1 at 71.6%, and HLE Diamond at 58.8%, while Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads on Terminal Bench 4.1, OSWorld 2.1, and Terminal Bench Science 0.1. Cursor said the model is now in Cursor and, at its default effort, scores 54.3% on CursorBench, up from 39.6% for Gemini 3.8 Flash. Demis Hassabis said he was very excited to release the model and pointed readers to a blog for more information.
What to expect next
Watch how quickly the model shows up for users in the Gemini app, Search, AI Studio and the API, and how developers compare it with Carbon and Argon. The 4 thinking levels will be an early test of whether people can trade speed and cost against reasoning depth in real work. Independent benches, including Artificial Analysis and CursorBench, will also show whether the official speed and quality claims hold once more people are using it.