The ipykernel is a package for Jupyter that allows Jupyter to interact with Python code. It’s essentially the Python execution backend for Jupyter.

To explain a bit more, Jupyter notebooks are interactive documents that can contain both text (like markdown or HTML) and executable code (typically Python, but it could be other languages as well). This interactivity comes from a system of kernels, which are essentially processes that run the code you enter in the notebook.

The ipykernel is the specific kernel for Python. When you run a cell in a Jupyter notebook that contains Python code, that code is sent from the notebook interface to the ipykernel, which executes the code, and then sends the results back to the notebook.

The ipykernel package is part of the larger IPython project, which is an interactive Python shell that adds some nice features for interactive use, like improved debugging and syntax highlighting.

To install the ipykernel you can use pip or conda:

• Using pip: pip install ipykernel
• Using conda: conda install ipykernel