While much of the AI world chases ever-larger models, Ravin Kumar (Google DeepMind) and his team build across the size spectrum, from billions of parameters down to this week’s release: Gemma 270M, the smallest member yet of the Gemma 3 open-weight family. At just 270 million parameters, a quarter the size of Gemma 1B, it’s designed for speed, efficiency, and fine-tuning.
We explore what makes 270M special, where it fits alongside its billion-parameter siblings, and why you might reach for it in production even if you think “small” means “just for experiments.”
We talk through:
- Where 270M fits into the Gemma 3 lineup — and why it exists
- On-device use cases where latency, privacy, and efficiency matter
- How smaller models open up rapid, targeted fine-tuning
- Running multiple models in parallel without heavyweight hardware
- Why “small” models might drive the next big wave of AI adoption
If you’ve ever wondered what you’d do with a model this size (or how to squeeze the most out of it) this episode will show you how small can punch far above its weight.
LINKS
Introducing Gemma 3 270M: The compact model for hyper-efficient AI (Google Developer Blog) (https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-gemma-3-270m/)
Full Model Fine-Tune Guide using Hugging Face Transformers (https://ai.google.dev/gemma/docs/core/huggingface_text_full_finetune)
The Gemma 270M model on HuggingFace (https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-3-270m)
The Gemma 270M model on Ollama (3:27 0m" target="_blank">https://ollama.com/library/gemma3:27 0m)
Building AI Agents with Gemma 3, a workshop with Ravin and Hugo (https://www.youtube.com/live/-IWstEStqok) (Code here (https://github.com/canyon289/ai_agent_basics))
From Images to Agents: Building and Evaluating Multimodal AI Workflows, a workshop with Ravin and Hugo (https://www.youtube.com/live/FNlM7lSt8Uk)(Code here (https://github.com/canyon289/ai_image_agent))
Evaluating AI Agents: From Demos to Dependability, an upcoming workshop with Ravin and Hugo (https://lu.ma/ezgny3dl)
Upcoming Events on Luma (https://lu.ma/calendar/cal-8ImWFDQ3IEIxNWk)
Watch the podcast video on YouTube (https://youtu.be/VZDw6C2A_8E)
🎓 Learn more:
Hugo's course: Building LLM Applications for Data Scientists and Software Engineers (https://maven.com/s/course/d56067f338) — https://maven.com/s/course/d56067f338 ($600 off early bird discount for November cohort availiable until August 16)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hugobowne.substack.com