Gemma 3: Google’s new open model based on Gemini 2.0

Mar 16, 2025

Mar 12, 2025

[[read-time]] min read

The Gemma family of open models is foundational to our commitment to making useful AI technology accessible. Last month, we celebrated Gemma's first birthday, a milestone marked by incredible adoption — over 100 million downloads — and a vibrant community that has created more than 60,000 Gemma variants. This Gemmaverse continues to inspire us.

Today, we're introducing Gemma 3, a collection of lightweight, state-of-the-art open models built from the same research and technology that powers our Gemini 2.0 models. These are our most advanced, portable and responsibly developed open models yet. They are designed to run fast, directly on devices — from phones and laptops to workstations — helping developers create AI applications, wherever people need them. Gemma 3 comes in a range of sizes (1B, 4B, 12B and 27B), allowing you to choose the best model for your specific hardware and performance needs.

In this post, we'll explore Gemma 3's capabilities, introduce ShieldGemma 2, and share how you can join the expanding Gemmaverse.

This chart ranks AI models by Chatbot Arena Elo scores; higher scores (top numbers) indicate greater user preference. Dots show estimated NVIDIA H100 GPU requirements. Gemma 3 27B ranks highly, requiring only a single GPU despite others needing up to 32.

For a deeper dive into the technical details behind these capabilities, as well as a comprehensive overview of our approach to responsible development, refer to the Gemma 3 technical report.

We believe open models require careful risk assessment, and our approach balances innovation with safety – tailoring testing intensity to model capabilities. Gemma 3's development included extensive data governance, alignment with our safety policies via fine-tuning and robust benchmark evaluations. While thorough testing of more capable models often informs our assessment of less capable ones, Gemma 3's enhanced STEM performance prompted specific evaluations focused on its potential for misuse in creating harmful substances; their results indicate a low risk level.

As industry develops more powerful models, it will be critical to collectively develop risk-proportionate approaches to safety. We will continue to learn and refine our safety practices for open models over time.

Alongside Gemma 3, we're also launching ShieldGemma 2, a powerful 4B image safety checker built on the Gemma 3 foundation. ShieldGemma 2 provides a ready-made solution for image safety, outputting safety labels across three safety categories: dangerous content, sexually explicit and violence. Developers can further customize ShieldGemma for their safety needs and users. ShieldGemma 2 is open and built to give flexibility and control, leveraging the performance and efficiency of the Gemma 3 architecture to promote responsible AI development.

Gemma 3 and ShieldGemma 2 integrate seamlessly into your existing workflows:

The Gemmaverse is a vast ecosystem of community-created Gemma models and tools, ready to power and inspire your innovation. For example, AI Singapore's SEA-LION v3 breaks down language barriers and fosters communication across Southeast Asia; INSAIT's BgGPT is a pioneering Bulgarian-first large language model that demonstrates the power of Gemma to support diverse languages; and Nexa AI's OmniAudio showcases the potential of on-device AI, bringing advanced audio processing capabilities to everyday devices.

To further promote academic research breakthroughs, we're launching the Gemma 3 Academic Program. Academic researchers can apply for Google Cloud credits (worth $10,000 per award) to accelerate their Gemma 3-based research. The application form opens today, and will remain open for four weeks. Apply on our website.

As part of our ongoing commitment to democratizing access to high-quality AI, Gemma 3 represents the next step. Ready to explore Gemma 3? Here's where to start:

Instant exploration:

Customize and build:

Deploy and scale: