Intermediate · Systems

Real-time Processing

Visual diagram · (in preparation) · Math · (in preparation) · Worked example · 3 difficulty levels.

TL;DR. Handling data and producing results within strict latency bounds, often milliseconds.

Technical Definition

Handling data and producing results within strict latency bounds, often milliseconds.

How it works

Real-time ML powers fraud detection, ad ranking, recommendation, and live transcription. It demands low-latency feature stores, efficient models, and robust monitoring. Often paired with offline batch jobs that retrain models on accumulated data.

Related Concepts

• Latency — The time between sending a request and receiving the first (or final) response.
• Streaming — Returning model output incrementally — token by token — as it is generated.
• Offline Processing — Computing predictions or transforming data in batches, without strict latency requirements.