Google reportedly tests Gemini 4 variants Argon, Barium and Carbon
Google's Gemini 4 "Carbon" model reportedly feels like Anthropic's Opus 5.5 coding performance
What happened
Business Insider reported that Google is testing several Gemini 4 variants named Argon, Barium and Carbon, based on documents, screenshots and internal chats. Carbon, deployed on Google's internal coding platform Jetski, is said to beat Argon mainly on programming tasks, and one employee compared it to Anthropic's Opus 5.5 while noting more testing is needed. Google describes Argon as its frontier reasoning model, with no official Gemini 4 launch date announced.
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