OpenAI to take over Astral for undisclosed sum
By Benjamin Chiou
Date: Thursday 19 Mar 2026
(Sharecast News) - ChatGPT maker OpenAI has announced the acquisition of open source developer tool startup Astral for an undisclosed sum, bringing the firm into its Codex ecosystem.
Astral is most known for its open source tools for Python - a programming language to build, test, and maintain applications.
The tools uv, Ruff and ty have become central to the foundation of modern Python development, according to OpenAI.
"As part of our developer-first philosophy, after closing OpenAI plans to support Astral's open source products. By bringing Astral's tooling and engineering expertise to OpenAI, we will accelerate our work on Codex and expand what AI can do across the software development lifecycle," the firm said in a statement.
Codex is OpenAI's coding assistant, which has grown users three fold by the start of 2026 with over 2m weekly active users.
"Astral's tools are used by millions of Python developers. By bringing their expertise and ecosystem to OpenAI, we're accelerating our vision for Codex as the agent most capable of working across the entire software developer lifecycle," said Thibault Sottiaux, Codex lead at OpenAI.
Email this article to a friend
or share it with one of these popular networks:
You are here: news
10 Lower Thames St,
London EC3R 6EN