Wheel Next + Packaging PEPs - Talk Python to Me Ep. 544
When you pip install a package with compiled code, the wheel you get is built for CPU features from 2009. Want newer optimizations like AVX2? Your installer has no way to ask for them. GPU support? You're on your own configuring special index URLs. The result is fat binaries, nearly gigabyte-sized wheels, and install pages that read like puzzle books. A coalition from NVIDIA, Astral, and QuanSight has been working on Wheel Next: A set of PEPs that let packages declare what hardware they need and let installers like uv pick the right build automatically. Just uv pip install torch and it works. I sit down with Jonathan Dekhtiar from NVIDIA, Ralf Gommers from Quansight and the NumPy and SciPy teams, and Charlie Marsh, founder of Astral and creator of uv, to dig into all of it. ▬▬▬▬ About the podcast ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ This video is the uncut, live recording of the Talk Python To Me podcast ( https://talkpython.fm ). We cover Python-focused topics every week and publish the edited and polished version in audio form. Subscribe in your podcast player of choice (100% free) at https://talkpython.fm/subscribe. ▬▬▬▬ Guests ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Ralf Gommers Jonathan Dekhtiar Charlie Marsh ▬▬▬▬ Links and resources from the show ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ CPU dispatcher: https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/simd/how-it-works.html build options: https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/simd/build-options.html Red Hat RHEL: https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux Red Hat RHEL AI: https://www.redhat.com/en/products/ai RedHats presentation: https://wheelnext.dev/summits/2025_03/assets/WheelNext%20Community%20Summit%20-%2006%20-%20Red%20Hat.pdf CUDA release: https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda/toolkit requires a PEP: https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-proposal-platform-aware-gpu-packaging-and-installation-for-python/91910 WheelNext: https://wheelnext.dev/ Github repo: https://github.com/wheelnext PEP 817: https://peps.python.org/pep-0817/ PEP 825: https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-825-wheel-variants-package-format-split-from-pep-817/106196 uv: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/ A variant-enabled build of uv: https://astral.sh/blog/wheel-variants pyx: https://astral.sh/blog/introducing-pyx pypackaging-native: https://pypackaging-native.github.io PEP 784: https://peps.python.org/pep-0784/ ▬▬▬▬ Dive deeper ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Listen to the Talk Python To Me podcast at https://talkpython.fm and explore over 275 hours of Python courses at https://training.talkpython.fm/courses. ▬▬▬▬ Follow us on Social ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Mastodon: Michael - https://fosstodon.org/@mkennedy & Talk Python - https://fosstodon.org/@talkpython Bluesky: Michael - https://bsky.app/profile/mkennedy.codes & Talk Python - https://bsky.app/profile/talkpython.fm X: Michael - https://x.com/mkennedy & Talk Python - https://x.com/talkpython