They are rewriting BLAS in Python? Seriously? Links please.
You may not be aware that NumPy does it's heavy lifting by offloading the work to C and FORTRAN, and that's where the speed comes from. You set up your data in Python, use the nice high level language to parse files, etc, then you pass chunks of memory containing matrices off to the FORTRAN to crunch, then use Python again to say write it back to a file.
Yes to the basic point, but note that (specifically) if you use BLAS in Fortran, you're typically losing a factor of several in speed, I'm sorry to say. Competitive serial numerical kernels typically still end up needing assembler (e.g. OpenBLAS, FFTW, ELPA).
I'm not sure why Fortran wouldn't be considered a high level language, if that's the implication (and it hasn't been SHOUTED since the 70s).
You may not be aware that NumPy does it's heavy lifting by offloading the work to C and FORTRAN, and that's where the speed comes from. You set up your data in Python, use the nice high level language to parse files, etc, then you pass chunks of memory containing matrices off to the FORTRAN to crunch, then use Python again to say write it back to a file.