impressive gains for such a mature project.
The CPython developers have never historically prioritised performance. Simplicity and readability of implementation have typically been higher priorities. In fact that's a key quality of Python in general that development speed is more important than runtime performance.
PHP had a similar performance binge about 6 years ago which is why it tends to run circles around similar class interpreted languages these days
Imagine what could happen if billions of dollars were invested in performance like it was done for C/C++/Java/Javascript in aggregate by various companies.
As more Python is being run in datacenters that starts to make sense, since 1% of CPU usage improvement can mean tens of millions of dollars per year in power costs.
As did IronPython, while Microsoft cared to burn money on it.
From what I remember IronPython had Microsoft hire something like 5 developers for a few years.