How an MIT research project became a global programming language
A research project that began at MIT around 2009 grew into the Julia programming language, which now counts more than 1 million users at thousands of companies and universities worldwide, according to MIT News. Julia's co-creators include JuliaHub co-founder and CEO Viral Shah, MIT professor of mathematics Alan Edelman, Jeff Bezanson SM '12, PhD '15, and former MIT research scientist Stefan Karpinski.
The effort started after researchers grew frustrated with existing languages for scientific and mathematical work, which they found rigid and slow. The Julia Lab remains active in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The researchers announced Julia in a 2012 blog post. JuliaHub was founded in 2015 as demand for support grew, with backing from the MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and others at MIT.
Julia uses just-in-time compilation, which compiles code depending on the type of data being used. Shah said the goal was a language as easy to use as Python or MATLAB but as fast as C.
Julia has been used to simulate computer circuits, model global climates and oceans, analyze brain activity, and detect health disparities, among other applications. A pharmaceutical modeling platform built in Julia was used to accelerate development of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine, and researchers used Julia for an aircraft collision-avoidance program that ran about 50 times faster than an earlier Python version. Engineers at Meta used Julia to develop an audio codec for WhatsApp.
In April, JuliaHub launched Dyad 3.0, the latest version of its AI platform for engineering teams developing complex physical systems such as rockets, heat pumps, and satellites. Shah said engineers are using Dyad to direct autonomous AI agents through physics simulations, safety analyses, and quality controls, and that JuliaHub is working with customers including Boeing on agentic hardware design capabilities. Shah described Dyad as a physics compiler that enforces physical laws and said it is expected to decrease design times in product engineering.
JuliaHub launched Dyad 1.0 in June 2025 as a research agent to accelerate programming, followed by Dyad 2.0 in December. Edelman said one student recently used Dyad to model how robots move in space and another used it to build a rocket engine.
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Publisher excerpt
With millions of users across the world, Julia has been used to conduct cutting-edge research and to design new drugs, jet engines, heat pumps, and more.