Google’s Gemma models have now crossed an astonishing 150 million downloads, a major milestone that signals growing popularity and developer trust in the open-source AI ecosystem.

Omar Sanseviero, a developer relations engineer at Google DeepMind, proudly shared the news on X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend. In his post, he also revealed that more than 70,000 custom variants of Gemma have been built on the Hugging Face platform showing how quickly the developer community is embracing this powerful model family.

“Gemma just passed 150 million downloads and over 70k variants on Hugging Face”

What Is Gemma and Why It Matters?

First launched in February 2024, Google introduced Gemma to compete with other leading “open” AI model families like Meta’s Llama. Since then, Gemma has rapidly evolved with its latest versions being multimodal, meaning they can understand and process both text and images. The models now support over 100 languages, expanding their reach and usability worldwide.

Google has also released fine-tuned Gemma versions built for specific fields, such as drug discovery, showing how AI can accelerate innovation in areas like healthcare and science.

Gemma vs. Llama, Who’s Winning the AI Race?

While reaching 150 million downloads in just over a year is impressive, Gemma still trails its biggest rival Meta’s Llama, which hit a massive 1.2 billion downloads by late April 2025. That’s a significant gap, but Google’s consistent progress shows it’s firmly in the game.

Licensing Still a Concern

Despite their success, Gemma and Llama have both faced criticism for using custom, non-standard licensing terms. Some developers say these terms make commercial use risky, adding uncertainty for startups and businesses looking to build on top of these models.

What’s Next for Gemma?

As Omar asked on X,

“What would you like to see in the next Gemma versions?”

With a growing user base, strong community involvement, and continuous development, Gemma is shaping up to be a major force in the future of open AI and all eyes are now on what Google delivers next.