Experimenting in Modern Java for Data Science and AI

JavaFest 2026
Siddharth Srinivasan

Siddharth Srinivasan

Lead Principal Platform Software Engineer

Oracle

Track: Core Java
Session Type: Lightning Talk
Edition: JavaFest 2026

For years, developers associated Java primarily with heavyweight enterprise applications and multi-module builds. Today, modern Java is remarkably nimble for fast experimentation, data exploration, and rapid prototyping.

This talk showcases the spectrum of modern Java experimentation tools:

  • JShell & Java Source-File Mode (shebang): Instant feedback for snippets and scripts without full project setup
  • Interactive Notebooks (Jupyter with Java): Documenting experiments, data trials, and visualizations interactively
  • Project Panama & Foreign Function & Memory (FFM) API: Safe, zero-boilerplate bridges to native libraries
  • Vector API, Valhalla, and Babylon: Accelerating computational workloads from CPUs to GPUs directly from Java

Discover how modern OpenJDK innovations make Java one of the best platforms for both rapid experimentation and high-performance production workloads.