Frontier Tower AI Paper Reading Club - Week 22 - Gemma 4 12B -- Encoder free multi-modal!

​Weekly paper: https://newsletter.maartengrootendorst.com/p/a-visual-guide-to-gemma-4-12b

​Headline: "Traditional multimodal models rely on frozen, separate vision encoders (e.g., Gemma 4 uses a 150M parameter vision model for edge sizes and 550M for medium-sized models) and audio encoders (300M parameters for Gemma 4 E2B and E4B). Processing multimodal inputs with multiple separate encoders before feeding them to the LLM leads to increased latency and fragmented memory footprints.

​Gemma 4 12B solves these issues by utilizing a single decoder-only transformer containing the same advanced decoder structure as the Gemma 4 31B Dense model."

​What are the group goals? Stay on top of AI research, improve understanding of AI fundamentals+math.

​Who is welcome? Everyone! Try to put in at least some time on the paper and come prepared with questions or things you'd like to discuss, but it's ok to just show up.

​How will it work? Ideally everyone shows up and has at least made one solid pass through the paper, and then we can spend 30-60 minutes as a group going over it.

​This event is hosted at the Frontier Tower:

​We are transforming a 16-floor tower in San Francisco into a self-governed vertical village—a hub for frontier technologies and creative arts. Tier-one labs presenting AI, Ethereum, biotech, neuroscience, longevity, robotics, makerspace, human flourishing, and arts & music. These floors will house innovators and creators pushing the boundaries of human potential in a post-AI-singularity world.

​Apply here for founding citizenship: https://frontiertower.io/apply

​Why should I become a citizen?

• ​Be part of creating the first self-governed vertical village

• ​Connect with the most creative people in the city

• ​Get access to all floors, free event space & movement floor

​Website: https://frontiertower.io/

​Need more reading? Visit https://frontiertower.notion.site/