OpenAI announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement to acquire Astral, the startup behind some of Python community’s most popular open-source developer tools.
The acquisition marks further escalation in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted development market, which has led to a coding war between OpenAI and its primary rivals, including Anthropic and the AI-native code editor Cursor.
In integrating Astral’s high-performance tooling into its Codex platform, OpenAI intends to solidify its ecosystem as the primary destination for software engineers.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but under the deal Astral’s team is expected to join OpenAI to enhance Codex, the AI engine that powers various programming interfaces. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval. If cleared, it will signal a new era for OpenAI, transitioning from a research-heavy lab into a vertically integrated software powerhouse.
The move follows a period of explosive growth for OpenAI’s developer wing: the company reported that Codex now boasts more than 2 million weekly active users, a three-fold increase since the beginning of the year.
“Our goal remains the same: to make programming more productive,” Astral CEO Charlie Marsh wrote in a blog post. Marsh confirmed that OpenAI intends to continue supporting Astral’s existing open-source projects, which are widely praised for bringing speed and reliability to the Python language.
The deal is part of a broader, aggressive acquisition streak led by CEO Sam Altman. Since hiring former Google executive Albert Lee to lead corporate development in December, OpenAI has moved rapidly to bridge gaps in its portfolio.
In May 2025, OpenAI acquired Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup, io, for $6.4 billion. In January this year, it purchased healthcare tech firm Torch. And earlier this month, OpenAI announced it had bought cybersecurity startup Promptfoo.
The acquisition arrives as Anthropic’s Claude Code gains significant momentum among developers who prize its reasoning capabilities. By folding Astral’s specialized Python tools – renowned for their performance-oriented architecture — into its stack, OpenAI is betting that a more integrated, high-speed developer experience will prevent user churn to competitors.