Will Mojo become Python's successor for AI development? Mojo or 'Python on steroids' is rising due to its performance

Mojo is a new programming language that was recently unveiled by the AI infrastructure company, Modular AI. It is ideal for research and production by combining the syntax of Python with the portability and speed of C.

The need for an innovative and scalable programming model to unify the world's ML or AI infrastructure gives rise to Mojo. A superset of Python, Mojo supports Python core features such as error handling, async/await, and variadics. While it is designed to work alongside languages like Python, there are some speculations that Mojo replacing Python as the language of choice for AI development. Let's explore more of both languages and check if Mojo is a viable candidate to replace Python in AI development.

The Modular AI team tweeted, "Mojo combines the usability of Python with the performance of C, unlocking unparalleled programmability of AI hardware and extensibility of AI models. Also, it's up to 35000x faster than Python"

Python is a simple, easy-to-use programming language that made it a go-to language for AI development. The programming language was a choice for data analysis and prototyping as its code can be executed directly without the need for compilation. Python syntax is easy to learn and read, which allows developers to quickly write and test code. It is compatible with a wide range of operating systems as well.

Mojo provides a familiar environment for Python programmers by transitioning users to Mojo seamlessly and leveraging its advanced systems programming features. Mojo's goal is to provide predictable low-level performance and control while being fully compatible with the Python ecosystem.

Python is also known for its robust ecosystem of libraries and tools specifically designed for AI development. Libraries like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Scikit-learn provide developers with a powerful set of tools for developing and training AI models, and Python's rich community of contributors provides a wealth of knowledge and resources to help developers overcome any obstacles they may encounter. Mojo will leverage the entire ecosystem of Python libraries built on a brand-new codebase. Along with this and computational ability of C and C++ enables AI python developers to rely on Mojo.

The fragmentation in the ecosystem and deployment challenges faced by the Python community is resolved by Mojo. Mojo was designed to support both general-purpose programming and accelerators essential for AI systems. However, specialized accelerators face difficulty in handling tasks where the host CPU plays a major role. Mojo supports the whole range of general-purpose programming that addresses the issues.

Python language may not be ideal for certain AI applications. This is a major concern considering applications that require real-time processing or are dealing with large datasets. Python's highlighting feature of simplicity and easy-to-write and test code makes it less suited for applications that require more advanced programming techniques. On the other hand, Mojo is designed to be fast, efficient, and easy to use. Built on low-level virtual machine compiler infrastructure, it allows it to be compiled into machine code and run on a wide range of hardware architectures. Thus, this makes it a good choice for applications that require real-time processing or deal with large datasets.

Mojo has been referred to as "Python on steroids" because of its exceptional performance capabilities. Mojo is 35000 times faster than Python which provides a sizable speedup that creates new opportunities for data-intensive and computationally demanding tasks.

With the emergence of Mojo, speculations have risen on the future of Python. Mojo's unique features such as supporting automatic differentiation, and automatically calculating gradients without the use of manual coding. This reduces the time and effort required to develop and train AI models.

As a relatively new language, the lack of libraries and tools for Mojo is a challenge. More developing time is required as the ecosystem is not mature as Python's and to develop code. While there are some libraries available, the ecosystem is not as mature as Python's, and developers may need to spend more time developing and testing their code. Additionally, Mojo's syntax may be less familiar to developers who are used to working with Python, which could make it more difficult for them to switch to Mojo.

Mojo is still in its early stages and is not yet available to the general public. It will, however, be open-sourced in the future. There is currently a waitlist to try it out, but lucky early-access users like us can run the code by creating a file ending in Mojo.