Part I: The Gala, the Suburbs, and the “Months Behind” Myth in LLM Labs

robot flex, tech science parks, the supply chain of LLMs, post-training, data arbitrage

Part I: The Gala, the Suburbs, and the “Months Behind” Myth in LLM Labs robot flex, tech science parks, the supply chain of LLMs, post-training, data arbitrage Grace Shao Feb 20, 2026 74 3 18 Share Hello! Over the last week, X has gone into a frenzy about the CCTV Spring Gala’s robotics shows. And tbh they were truly impressive in their agility, flexibility, and mobility. I’m resurfacing some old robotics pieces I’ve written and put under “Physical AI” on AI Proem. But I’m not going into details about that today, because even though these robots are impressive looking right now, I still don’t

saved by

• Celeste Li

related reading

• China AI Bulletin 1 - by Emmie Hine - China AI Bulletinchinaaibulletin.substack.com
• Notes from inside China's AI labs - by Nathan Lambertinterconnects.ai
• What We’ve Learned From A Year of Building with LLMs – Applied LLMsapplied-llms.org
• All Roads Lead to Robotics | Eric Jangevjang.com
• A vision researcher’s guide to some RL stuff: PPO & GRPO - Yuge (Jimmy) Shiyugeten.github.io
• America Is Missing The New Labor Economy - Robotics Part 1semianalysis.com
• Hallucinations in AIluttig.substack.com
• My picture of the present in AI — LessWronglesswrong.com
• The vibes in China’s AI labsflorianbrand.com
• We Spent 10 Days Touring Chinese AI Labs. Here’s What We Saw.blog.readsail.com
• DeepSeek: The View from Chinachinatalk.media
• A History of the Future, 2025-2040 — LessWronglesswrong.com