WebAssembly Unleashed

WebAssembly is usually framed as an application runtime story, but at AppWorld 2026 in Las Vegas, WebAssembly Unleashed shifts the spotlight to a more urgent frontier: data. As AI architectures get hungrier and more distributed, performance and security constraints are moving closer to the data store itself. In this episode, Joel Moses and co-host Oscar Spencer explore why WebAssembly components could become the connective tissue between data-intensive AI systems and the storage infrastructure that feeds them.They’re joined by Ugur Tigli, CTO of MinIO, to break down how modern AI workloads stress storage in very different ways, from throughput-heavy training and RAG pipelines to latency-sensitive inference. Ugur explains why keeping GPUs fed is now an economic necessity, how MinIO optimizes for saturating networks, and how techniques like erasure coding and SIMD offload help keep CPU and memory overhead low across diverse hardware targets.If you’re trying to understand where WebAssembly fits beyond the browser and beyond app logic, this episode offers a practical view of Wasm as a data-adjacent execution layer for real-world AI.

In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci are joined by DevCentral Community Evangelist, Jason Rahm, to discuss programmability in the data plane. Through Jason's insights and use cases as both a former F5 customer and a current DevCentral maintainer they dig into the lessons learned from F5's iRules that Wasm should take note of.  Tune in to understand the programmability pain points for non-developers, the benefits of the community feedback loop, what Wasm can do to be usable for non-devs, and why Wasm portability reduces tool sprawl across platforms.Learn more about F5's iRules: https://clouddocs.f5.com/api/irules/

Ralph Squillace, Principal Product Manager on Azure Core Upstream who champions open source and WebAssembly at Microsoft. He traces Linux and container roots, explains why Wasm offers a more portable, secure compute model, and describes Microsoft’s role in shaping Wasm for cloud-native plugins and lower-cost serverless. The conversation highlights where Wasm shines and what tooling and language support still need work.

Yosh Wuyts, a Senior Developer Advocate at Microsoft and a contributor to the WebAssembly ecosystem, delves into Wassette, a groundbreaking tool for AI agents. He explains its innovative sandboxing capabilities, enhancing security while running code. The discussion covers Wasette's architecture using Wasmtime, its component model allowing fine-grained permissions, and its integration with multiple programming languages like Rust and Python. Yosh also contrasts Wassette’s safety against risky native downloads, showcasing its potential to transform development processes.

Hosts and their special guest dive into the latest WebAssembly proposals, exploring ESM integration for easy JavaScript imports. They discuss the benefits of wide arithmetic operations for improved performance and cryptography. The nuances between phase two and phase three proposals are dissected, alongside a look at relaxed dead code validation. The team debates custom page sizes for efficiency in embedded systems and the significance of stack switching for coroutines. Insights into the component model's status and challenges in observability complete this engaging discussion.

Dive into the heated discussions around WebAssembly's latest proposals! The hosts and guest explore the potential of tail calls and the challenges of implementation. They tackle the complexities of garbage collection, multiple memories, and the excitement of relaxed SIMD. Concerns about JavaScript integrations and the implications for ecosystem fragmentation are also front and center. Plus, insights into the future of threading and async integration reveal both promise and pitfalls. If you love tech debates, this one's for you!

Join hosts Joel Moses and Oscar Spencer as they dig into recent developments in the world of WebAssembly, starting with a look at Microsoft's Wassette, an initiative utilizing Wasm to enhance AI agent security. Then hear from special guests Khagan (Khan) Karimov and Arjun Ramesh, two doctoral candidates passionate about innovative WebAssembly research. Hear about Khan's focus on fuzzing Wasm implementations to root out security vulnerabilities, while Arjun explores time travel debugging to revolutionize debugging in embedded systems. Tune in for an insightful episode that highlights the exciting developments in the WebAssembly space!For more from F5's Office of the CTO visit the following sites: Blogs -  https://www.f5.com/company/octoReports -  https://www.f5.com/services/resources/reports

Oliver Medhurst, a former Mozilla engineer, discusses his innovative project, Porffor, which compiles JavaScript ahead-of-time to WebAssembly and native binaries. He highlights the complexities of static compilation in JavaScript and the benefits of AOT, such as smaller binaries and faster startup times. Oliver shares insights on type inference, performance improvements over interpreters, and the importance of community feedback in refining Porffor. He also delves into garbage collection strategies and offers advice to aspiring AOT compiler builders.

Join hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci as they dive deep into the world of formal verification with special guest Chris Fallin. In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, the team discusses the importance of formal verification in software development, particularly for WebAssembly. Chris, a co-author of the Cranelift compiler and Mozilla alum, explains the concept of formal verification, its significance, and how it can be applied to ensure software correctness and security. The conversation covers a range of topics including type safety, the use of SMT solvers, the challenges in formally verifying compilers, and the potential role of AI in generating formally verified code. Don't miss this insightful discussion if you're keen to learn about cutting-edge techniques to make software more reliable and secure.

Andreas Rossberg, a programming languages researcher and co-designer of the WebAssembly specification, joins the conversation to share his journey from V8 to WebAssembly. He introduces SpecTec, a unique language designed to unify and streamline the WebAssembly specification. The discussion reveals how SpecTec addresses duplication issues and enhances compiler construction. Andreas also touches on the unexpected adoption of WebAssembly in embedded systems and emphasizes the need for improved tooling and runtimes in the community.