Google Unveils New Affordable AI Models Amid Rising Cost Concerns
Alphabet's Google has recently introduced updates to its Gemini family of large language models, revealing a new line of products with competitive pricing to rival low-cost artificial intelligence models like those offered by Chinese competitor DeepSeek.
The tech giant's Gemini range includes various versions with different price points and performance levels. While Google already had a lightweight model called "Flash," it has now launched an even more affordable model named "Flash-Lite."
Google made Gemini 2.0 Flash available to the public after showcasing it to developers in December. Additionally, they introduced Flash-Lite and rolled out a new iteration of their flagship "Pro" model for testing.
According to Koray Kavukcuoglu, chief technology officer of Google's DeepMind AI lab, the creation of Flash-Lite was influenced by the positive reception of Flash version 1.5. However, Gemini 2.0 Flash comes at a higher cost compared to its predecessor.
The expenses associated with developing AI models and their subsequent usage have recently attracted investor attention. This scrutiny intensified after DeepSeek disclosed that it spent less than $6 million on the final training run of a model. Industry experts at prominent U.S. AI companies believe the actual costs are significantly higher.
Despite the cost concerns, Alphabet and other tech giants like Microsoft and Meta have expressed their commitment to substantial capital investments in the AI sector. Alphabet's shares experienced a decline, partly due to investor apprehension over a planned capital expenditure increase that exceeded Wall Street's expectations by 29%.
Gemini Flash-Lite offers certain inputs at a cost of $0.019 per 1 million tokens, a unit of data processed by an AI model. This pricing compares favourably to the cost-efficient version of OpenAI's flagship model at $0.075 per token and DeepSeek's low-cost model at $0.014 per token. However, DeepSeek has announced an upcoming fivefold price increase on February 8th.
Google introduces new affordable AI models in the Gemini family
Gemini 2.0 Flash and Flash-Lite models launched with competitive pricing
Concerns over AI model development and usage costs rise in the tech industry
Source: REUTERS