Last refreshed 2026-11-10. Next refresh: weekly.
Why use Gemini 4 Carbon on GCP Vertex AI?
GCP Vertex AI offers Gemini 4 Carbon with pay-as-you-go pricing at $2.00/1M input tokens. Vertex AI is Google Cloud's managed AI platform, offering access to Gemini models and hundreds of partner models alongside tools for fine-tuning, grounding, vector search, and end-to-end MLOps pipelines.
Compare Gemini 4 Carbon across 4 providers to find the best fit for your use caseSetup recipe
Python + curlpip install google-cloud-aiplatformexport GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=...import os
import vertexai
from vertexai.generative_models import GenerativeModel
vertexai.init(project=os.environ["GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT"], location="us-central1")gemini-4-carbonRequest example
import os
import vertexai
from vertexai.generative_models import GenerativeModel
# Reads GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT from env; authenticates via Application Default Credentials
vertexai.init(project=os.environ["GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT"], location="us-central1")
model = GenerativeModel("gemini-4-carbon")
response = model.generate_content("Hello")
print(response.text)Gotchas
- For Google-published models use the model name directly, e.g. "gemini-2.0-flash-001". For third-party publishers (Anthropic, Meta, etc.) use the full publisher path, e.g. "publishers/anthropic/models/claude-3-5-sonnet-v2@20241022".
- The examples expect GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT; rename it only if your application config maps the new variable.
Compare Gemini 4 Carbon Across Providers
| Provider | Input (per 1M) | Output (per 1M) |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| GCP Vertex AI | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| OpenRouter | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| Vercel AI Gateway | $2.00 | $10.00 |
Pricing
| Type | Price (per 1M) |
|---|---|
| Input tokens | $2.00 |
| Output tokens | $10.00 |
Capabilities
About Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon is a Google DeepMind reasoning model that Google announced on October 28, 2026 for a subset of cyber defenders and trusted partners in its Fairwind Program, and made generally available on November 10, 2026 through the Gemini API, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Vertex AI), Google Antigravity, the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search for Google AI Ultra subscribers. Google describes it as its most capable reasoning model, built for sustained agentic coding, multimodal knowledge work, scientific reasoning and the cybersecurity defense lifecycle. It takes text, image, video, audio and PDF input and returns text.