This is a submission for the Google I/O 2026 Writing Challenge
"At Google I/O 2026, Google made a specific claim: Gemma 4 runs on consumer laptops without cloud dependency. They demoed offline coding on stage. Local AI on everyday hardware is finally practical, they said."
I tested that claim
GPU and high-bandwidth memory prices are not normal right now. AI companies are buying hardware at a scale that has genuinely disrupted the consumer market. A PC build suitable for local AI costs significantly more than it would have three or four years ago, if you can find the parts at all.
If you bought your machine before the AI hardware gold rush, you have leverage most people do not. I bought my laptop four years ago. An RTX 3050 with 4GB VRAM is not a serious AI card by any current standard, but it is exactly the kind of hardware Google implied Gemma 4 would run on. For local inference to start feeling consistently comfortable beyond lightweight models, 16GB VRAM is where things become much less restrictive. I have 4GB. This is what that looks like.
