Nikolai Zakharov (罗一阳)
ML Engineer at VK AI
Building language models that understand audio and speech. Based in Moscow after 10 years living in China's tech ecosystem.
All Posts
Beijing Car Visa: The Capital's Invisible Border
The unique challenges of entering Beijing by car - exploring the physical and bureaucratic barriers that make Beijing a special case in China's governance system.
Education in China: From Disappointment to Opportunity
How I pivoted from mechanical engineering to CS at Tsinghua University, navigating language barriers and cultural challenges.
Thoughts on Learning Chinese
Reflections on language learning and cultural immersion - from necessity to fluency in China's tech ecosystem.
[AI for all] What is Intelligence?
Exploring the fundamental question of what constitutes intelligence, both human and artificial, and the implications for AI development.
About
I'm Nikolai Zakharov, a Machine Learning Engineer specializing in Audio LLMs and speech understanding. With 10 years of experience in China's tech ecosystem (Huawei, Tinkoff, NIO) and fluency in Russian, English, and Chinese, I bridge the gap between text and audio modalities in AI systems.
Currently part of the research team at VK AI's Experimental Research Group, working on next-generation speech understanding systems that truly comprehend audio.