AI CURATED HOT STORY · 11/13/2026
Google has launched Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a high-speed and efficient model for everyday coding and agentic workflows, succeeding Gemini 3.8 Flash and immediately available to all users. It supports a full 1 million token context window, priced at $1.5 per million input tokens and $7.5 per million output tokens, with no tiered pricing and a 95% discount on cached input.
Hydrogen forms a tiered product matrix with Carbon and Argon, which focus on deep reasoning, and introduces a new xhigh reasoning level above high. It tops 7 of 10 benchmarks published by Google, with Terminal-Bench 4.1 score jumping from 18.2% to 57% and 2.5x faster task completion at default high thinking level. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, it scores 54, just 1 point behind Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol, while costing about 32% of Sonnet. The accompanying Orchestrator dynamically switches between Carbon and Hydrogen, reducing average quota consumption by 24%.
Hydrogen is fully integrated into Google AI Studio, Gemini API, Gemini for business, the Gemini app, and Google Search, and is available to paid AI Pro/Ultra subscribers. Its cost-effectiveness and speed are poised to lower the barrier for agentic workflow development, intensifying competition with Anthropic and OpenAI in the mainstream model race and driving broader AI adoption.