Async & Concurrency for AI Engineers

How Python actually handles doing more than one thing at a time: async/await and the event loop, concurrent HTTP and LLM calls, threads vs processes vs async, what the GIL really restricts, background job queues, streaming AI responses, and picking the right concurrency model for I/O-bound vs CPU-bound work.

What's inside:

• async & await Fundamentals

• The asyncio Event Loop & Cooperative Concurrency

• Async HTTP & Concurrent LLM/API Requests

• Threads vs Processes vs Async

• The Python GIL

• Background Jobs, Queues & Worker Patterns

• Streaming AI Responses

• Choosing Concurrency: I/O-bound vs CPU-bound

Every section follows the same shape: a mental-model card anchoring the new idea to something you already know, a small story with real numbers, a Your Turn you attempt yourself, then the full solution and why it works.

20 pages. Real code for every fix. No filler.

— launchcode.ai