In a move aimed at accelerating the growth of its Codex platform and expanding AI’s role across the software development lifecycle, OpenAI has announced that it will acquire startup Astral, a developer of widely used open-source Python tools. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. Until the transaction closes, the companies will continue to operate independently. Following the close of the deal, Astral’s team will join OpenAI’s Codex division.
Astral’s development tools are written in Rust, a programming language that is both more complicated and significantly faster than Python. As a result, the startup says that its software is 10 to 100 times more performant than competing products. That speed and certain other features have helped Astral build an installed base of several million developers.
The company’s flagship tool, uv, is a Python package manager. It enables developers to download open-source Python code components, or packages, and integrate them into their software projects. A built-in cache saves code components after the initial installation. That removes the need for developers to re-download the same package multiple times, which saves time.
OpenAI said today Astra’s open-source tools will continue to be maintained following the acquisition. The ChatGPT developer plans to integrate them with its Codex programming assistant. The Astral team is joining OpenAI to support the development effort.
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