Google rolls out Gemini 4 Hydrogen, replacing 3.8 Flash across its products

Google has released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, which replaces Gemini 3.8 Flash across the company's products with immediate access rather than the staged, paid-tier-only rollout used for its recent Argon and Carbon releases. Google says Hydrogen runs at one of four thinking levels (low, medium, high, and a new xhigh) and is 2.5 times faster than Flash 3.8 even in high mode, while cutting fabricated claims by more than 5x. It also more than triples 3.8 Flash's Terminal-Bench score and reaches 54 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index in xhigh mode, versus 50 for Argon.