Async/concurrent cell execution

[davidbrochart]

With ipykernel it is already possible to await at the top-level. akernel takes this behavior one step further by launching each cell in a task, allowing for concurrent cell execution. This will open up new possibilities, and it can already be a solution to difficult problems related to ipywidgets. A similar attempt was done in https://github.com/ipython/ipython/pull/11347 by @Carreau, although I think the approach is very different. Do you think it could be interesting/possible to have ipykernel support this kind of behavior?

cc @ilyabo @kylebarron

[ilyabo]

Indeed, akernel solves the issue with our Jupyter widget. It would be great if this functionality was in ipykernel itself. I think it shouldn't be necessary to install custom kernels just to be able to use await.

@davidbrochart There should be the Jupyter Widgets dev meeting at 6:30 CET today. I am planning to join in the first half an hour. It would be great if you could join too, so that we discuss this with the core developers. Here's the zoom link (hope that it's correct).