# Google discounts Gemini 4 Argon cached input tokens by 95%

From The Forward Pass daily issue, October 1, 2026 (https://theforwardpass.net/archive/daily/2026-10-01). Source: https://theforwardpass.net/archive/daily/2026-10-01/google-discounts-gemini-4-argon-cached-input-tokens-by-95

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**Top News** · 1,184 HN points

Google is opening Gemini 4 Argon in stages for long-horizon coding, enterprise work, multimodal tasks, and cybersecurity defense. Its announced introductory API rates are $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens.

Here’s what changed:
- Cached input tokens cost 95% less, which can lower bills when a request reuses prior context.
- Argon’s output-token limit is 1 million, up from 64,000, leaving more room for long responses.
- Google reports 77.9% on DeepSWE v1.1 and 68% on CWE-bench v1, tied for first.
- Google says the model can find, validate, and patch critical software vulnerabilities.

One catch: Access is currently limited to trusted cyber defenders through the Fairwind Program and a cohort of trusted testers. Google plans broader access starting with paid API customers and Google AI Ultra subscribers.

Sources: [blog.google](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-4-argon/) · [deepmind.google](https://deepmind.google/blog/gemini-4-argon-our-next-era-of-frontier-intelligence/)