Python’s data stack is getting a serious GPU turbo boost. In this episode, Ben Zaitlen from NVIDIA joins us to unpack RAPIDS, the open source toolkit that lets pandas, scikit-learn, Spark, Polars, and even NetworkX execute on GPUs. We trace the project’s origin and why NVIDIA built it in the open, then dig into the pieces that matter in practice: cuDF for DataFrames, cuML for ML, cuGraph for graphs, cuXfilter for dashboards, and friends like cuSpatial and cuSignal. We talk real speedups, how the pandas accelerator works without a rewrite, and what becomes possible when jobs that used to take hours finish in minutes. You’ll hear strategies for datasets bigger than GPU memory, scaling out with Dask or Ray, Spark acceleration, and the growing role of vector search with cuVS for AI workloads. If you know the CPU tools, this is your on-ramp to the same APIs at GPU speed.
Ryan is joined by Tuhin Srivastava, CEO and co-founder of Baseten, to explore the evolving landscape of AI infrastructure and inference workloads, how the shift from traditional machine learning models to large-scale neural networks has made GPU usage challenging, and the potential future of hardware-specific optimizations in AI.
Episode notes:
Baseten is an AI infrastructure platform giving you the tooling, expertise, and hardware needed to bring AI products to market fast.
Connect with Tuhin on LinkedIn or reach him at his email tuhin@baseten.co.
Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.
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django-remake-migrations is a tool to help you with migrations and the docs do a great job of describing the problem way better than I did last week
“The built-in squashmigrations command is great, but it only work on a single app at a time, which means that you need to run it for each app in your project. On a project with enough cross-apps dependencies, it can be tricky to run.”
“This command aims at solving this problem, by recreating all the migration files in the whole project, from scratch, and mark them as applied by using the replaces attribute.”
Matthew Prince is the CEO of Cloudflare. He joins Big Technology podcast to discuss whether the web can withstand a wave of generative AI companies scraping content, summarizing it, and not cutting the original creators into the revenue. Tune in to hear Prince masterfully dissect the problem and put forth a solution.
Crom Carmichael, a government contracting entrepreneur, investor, and historian joins the show to explore what a truly efficient government could look like and what history has shown us to be the best way achieve one. We discuss his journey into political philosophy and the creation of his educational platform, Giants of Political Thought, and dive into the historical roots of government. Finally, we unpack the evolution of the U.S. healthcare system, the impact of tax policy on public services, and the role of innovation—especially AI—in driving productivity.
Ryan welcomes Evan You, the creator of Vue.js, to explore the origins of Vue.js, the challenges faced during its development, and the project’s growth over a decade. They dive into potential integrations for AI, future developments for Vue.js, and the sustainability of open-source projects.
Episode notes:
Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework that’s approachable, performant, and versatile for building web user interfaces.
Check out what Evan and his team are doing to create the next generation of tooling at Void Zero.
Greg Shove was born in Canada, raised in Britain, and eventually moved to the United States. Through all of these places he lived, he learned to believe in equal access for people, never to quit, and to work hard and win - all of this, respectively. When he moved to California, he was told to visit the local grocery store to meet more tech people than he would in a year in Canada. After business school, he worked for Apple and has launched or participated in 7 startups. Outside of tech, he loves to BBQ Argentinian style, inspired by the chef Francis Mallman.
Six years ago, Greg started a company to teach people skills and how to become the best manager and executive they could be. The business did well, but mainly it was because of the pandemic. In 2023, he started playing with GPT, and he realized that he needed to pivot himself, and his business as well.
Keyu Jin is an economist specializing in China’s economy, international macroeconomics, global trade imbalances, and financial policy. She is the author of The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism.
Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep477-sc
See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.
OUTLINE:
(00:00) – Introduction
(00:35) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(08:26) – Misconceptions about China
(12:57) – Education in China
(22:14) – Economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping
(27:33) – Mayor economy and GDP growth race
(41:20) – Growing up in China
(46:58) – First time in the US
(51:12) – China’s government vs business sector
(54:46) – Communism and capitalism
(58:25) – Jack Ma
(1:04:37) – China’s view on innovation and copying ideas
(1:11:15) – DeepSeek moment
(1:15:09) – CHIPS Act
(1:16:56) – Tariffs and Trade
(1:29:21) – Immigration
(1:34:08) – Taiwan
(1:39:54) – One-child policy
(1:47:51) – China’s economy collapse predictions
(1:52:34) – Advice for visiting China
Anthony Aguirre is the executive director of the Future of Life Institute. He joins Big Technology to discuss how AI could fail in the worst case and whether our push toward increasingly autonomous, general systems puts control out of reach. Tune in to hear how agentic systems operating at superhuman speed complicate oversight, and why “just unplug it” is naive. Hit play for a cool‑headed, nuanced conversation with clear takeaways you can use to evaluate AI strategy, policy, and risk.
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Ravi Madabhushi finds that all of the stops along his professional journey were accidental. He grew up in a tiny village in the south of India - so small, it would take you 10 minutes to sprint across it, end to end. His goals back then were common - get a job, get married, etc. - but after he moved to Bangalore post school, he got acquainted with startups... and was hooked. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids. He enjoys playing tennis, badminton, and squash. He got introduced to squash when he was playing tennis, it started raining, and they were forced inside to play "inside tennis"... IE squash.
Ravi and his team had a successful exit from their prior company, and decided to give startups another go. They wanted to solve the authentication problem for builders wanting to focus on their product - not building auth. What they found was a new arena in the world of AI, agents, and authentication of everything in between.