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Artificial Intelligence (AI) …
10. July 2025
Google’s latest innovation in large language models (LLMs) is T5Gemma, a collection of encoder-decoder LLMs that aim to reclaim the benefits of the classic encoder-decoder architecture while improving inference efficiency. This new approach is based on the Gemma 2 framework and represents a departure from the current trend of favoring decoder-only models.
The story behind T5Gemma begins with an adaptation technique developed by Google researchers, who took pretrained decoder-only models and converted them into encoder-decoder ones using this novel approach. The goal was to leverage the strengths of both approaches to achieve a more favorable quality-efficiency trade-off. By doing so, they aimed to inherit the capabilities of decoder-only LLMs while reducing the computational demand compared to pretraining from scratch.
The researchers behind T5Gemma highlight that their adaptation technique not only enables the use of pretrained decoder-only models but also reduces the computational requirement for training. This is a significant advantage over traditional approaches, which often require massive amounts of data and computing resources to train encoder-decoder models from scratch.
One key benefit of T5Gemma is its ability to balance quality and inference efficiency. The researchers found that by combining smaller and larger models, they could create unbalanced combinations that optimized performance for specific tasks. For instance, a 9B-parameter encoder paired with a 2B-parameter decoder can be particularly effective when input understanding is crucial, while output complexity is not as significant.
The benchmark results shared by Google demonstrate the superiority of T5Gemma over comparable decoder-only models. On SuperGLUE and GSM8K benchmarks, the models outperformed their decoder-only counterparts in both accuracy and latency. For example, the 9B-9B variant of T5Gemma delivered higher GSM8K accuracy than the Gemma 2 9B model while maintaining similar latency.
T5Gemma also extends its advantages beyond pretraining. After instruction tuning, the models showed significant improvements. The 2B-2B variant of T5Gemma saw a dramatic jump in MMLU score, rising by 12 points, and GSM8K accuracy increased from 58.0% to 70.7%. This highlights the architecture’s responsiveness to fine-tuning and its ability to adapt to specific tasks.
Google has made it easy for researchers and developers to experiment with T5Gemma models. The company has released a wide range of checkpoints, including pretrained and instruction-tuned variants, with multiple training objectives such as PrefixLM and UL2. These models are now available on Hugging Face, Kaggle, and Vertex AI, allowing users to further explore and deploy the technology.
T5Gemma’s impact is significant, particularly in applications where quality and inference efficiency are critical. By reclaiming the benefits of the encoder-decoder architecture, Google has created a new class of models that can handle complex tasks with ease. As researchers and developers continue to experiment with T5Gemma, we can expect to see innovative applications across industries such as natural language processing, machine learning, and more.
In conversational AI, T5Gemma will make a significant impact by balancing quality and inference efficiency. These models can handle complex tasks such as dialogue management, sentiment analysis, and text summarization with ease, leveraging the strengths of both encoder-decoder and decoder-only architectures.
The future of large language models looks bright, and T5Gemma is a major step forward in this direction. By combining the strengths of both encoder-decoder and decoder-only architectures, these models offer a new class of capabilities that can handle complex tasks with ease. As researchers and developers continue to explore and deploy this technology, one thing is clear: the impact of T5Gemma will be felt across industries and applications, transforming the way we interact with machines and each other.