Diffusion Large Language Models | Inception Labs | Ray Summit 2026

Mercury 2 is the first reasoning model built on a diffusion architecture and the fastest model on the Artificial Analysis index. Modern diffusion LLMs demand a rebuild of the post-training stack, from algorithms to systems. At Ray Summit 2026, Aditya Grover, co-founder and CTO of Inception Labs, covers why standard policy-gradient methods break when sequence log-probabilities are intractable, how efficient estimators make GRPO-style RL viable, and the levers unique to this paradigm, plus how diffusion LLMs herald a new era of efficient on-policy training with a well-optimized inference engine. You'll leave with a view of the applications powered by Mercury 2 and the future of diffusion LLMs. Liked this video? Check out other Ray Summit breakout session recordings: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZNaJyYZRPdo Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay up-to-date on the future of AI: https://www.youtube.com/c/anyscale 🔗 Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinanyscale/ X: https://x.com/anyscalecompute Website: https://www.anyscale.com/