The Jupyter stack has undergone a significant transformation in recent years with the integration of collaborative editing features: users can now modify a shared document and see each other's changes in real time, with a user experience akin to that of Google Docs. The underlying technology uses a special data structure called Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs), that automatically resolves conflicts when concurrent changes are made. This allows data to be distributed rather than centralized in a server, letting clients work as if data was local rather than remote.
In this talk, we look at new possibilities that CRDTs can unlock, and how they are redefining Jupyter's architecture. Different use cases are presented: a suggestion system similar to Google Doc's, a chat system allowing collaboration with an AI agent, an execution model allowing full notebook state recovery, a collaborative widget model. We also look at the benefits of using CRDTs in JupyterLite, where users can interact without a server. This may be a great example of a distributed system where every user owns their data and shares them with their peers.