Asyncronous PHP and Asyncronous Drupal

During DrupalCon Barcelona, Larry Garfield has presented his vision for Drupal in 2020, and what are the main challenges that Drupal as a project needs to answer.

Since then, the tech world was shaken by the news that Automattic has launched new admin interface for WordPress sites, Calysto, written entirely in node.js

Main reason for developers to choose node.js? It's speed.

Well, technically, it's not speed  - JavaScript code is not times faster than PHP code, but the fact that using async approach, JavaScript uses CPU time more efficiently.

Like any other general purpose language, PHP can use operating system asyncronous switching layers like epoll.

Unlike JavaScript, it takes a certain effort in PHP to embrace epoll functionality.

Can Drupal, and PHP in general, answer "the Node challenge"?

Development of asyncronous components (reactphp, guzzle promises etc.) is already work in progress. How Drupal can join the movement?

What component is the best fit for Drupal?

Can existing Drupal 8.x core support async calls? If no, what changes needs to be done? Can this be done in 8.x, or we need to wait until 9.x?

For now, there are more questions than answers, but things are changing rapidly.

Future looks like fun