The Brutal Reality of Running Gemma 4 Locally
Sayandip Roy
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 signific