New release delivers 12 JDK Enhancement Proposals to improve the Java language and enhance the development platform’s performance, stability, and security
JavaOne returns to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2025
Austin, Texas—Mar 19, 2024Oracle today announced the availability of Java 22, the latest version of the world’s number one programming language and development platform. Java 22 (Oracle JDK 22) delivers thousands of performance, stability, and security improvements to help developers increase productivity, drive innovation, and accelerate growth across their organizations. These include enhancements to the Java language, its APIs and performance, and the tools included in the Java Development Kit (JDK).
“The new enhancements in Java 22 enable more developers to quickly and easily build and deliver feature-rich, scalable, and secure applications to help organizations across the globe grow their businesses,” said Georges Saab, senior vice president, Oracle Java Platform and chair, OpenJDK governing board. “By delivering enhancements that streamline application development and extend Java’s reach to make it accessible to developers of all proficiency levels, Java 22 will help drive the creation of a wide range of new applications and services for organizations and developers alike.”
The latest JDK provides updates and improvements with 12 JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs). JDK 22 delivers language improvements from OpenJDK Project Amber (Statements before super[…], Unnamed Variables & Patterns, String Templates, and Implicitly Declared Classes and Instance Main Methods); enhancements from Project Panama (Foreign Function & Memory API and Vector API); features related to Project Loom (Structured Concurrency and Scoped Values); core libraries and tools capabilities (Class-File API, Launch Multi-File Source-Code Programs, and Stream Gatherers); and performance updates (Region Pinning for G1).
“After nearly three decades, Java’s ability to support complex development tasks that span a wide range of use cases makes the platform as relevant as it has ever been,” said Arnal Dayaratna, research vice president, software development, IDC. “Java’s versatility and comprehensive toolset enables it to support the development of production-grade, mission-critical applications at scale, which positions it as a key enabling technology for innovative use cases such as generative AI.”
Significant updates delivered in Java 22 are:
The Java 22 release is the result of continuous collaboration between Oracle and other members of the worldwide Java developer community via OpenJDK and the Java Community Process (JCP). In addition to the new enhancements and features, Java 22 is supported by Java Management Service (JMS)—an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) native service—which offers a unified console and dashboard to help organizations manage Java runtimes and applications on-premises or in any cloud. For more details on the features in Java 22, please read the Java 22 technical blog post.
Java delivers increased performance, efficiency, innovation, and cost savings when deployed in the cloud on OCI, which is one of the first hyperscale clouds to support Java 22. By delivering Oracle Java SE, Oracle GraalVM, and the Java SE Subscription Enterprise Performance Pack free of charge on OCI, Java 22 enables developers to build and deploy applications that run faster, better, and with optimized cost-performance.
The Oracle Java Universal SE Subscription is a pay-as-you-go offering that provides customers with best-in-class support. It includes triage support for the entire Java portfolio, entitlement to GraalVM, the Java SE Subscription Enterprise Performance Pack, access to the advanced features of the Java Management Service, and the flexibility to upgrade at the pace of their businesses. This helps IT organizations manage complexity, contain costs, and mitigate security risks.
The flagship event for the global Java community, JavaOne, will return to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2025. Taking place from March 17-20, 2025 in Redwood Shores, California, JavaOne 2025 will give attendees the opportunity to hear about the latest Java developments and interact with Oracle’s Java experts and industry luminaries. Read more via the blog post on Inside Java here.
“Within the dynamic ecosystem of the Türkiye Java Community (TJC), Oracle’s enduring support fuels our momentum,” said Evren Tan, community lead, TJC. “As Java 22 unfolds, we are embracing an array of contemporary features that further enhance developer efficiency, bolstering our commitment to advancing Java technology in Türkiye. We also welcome Java developers worldwide to join us in TJC activities, showcasing the welcoming community spirit that keeps Java vibrant.”
“Java’s popularity as a programming language, platform, and developer community continues to grow in Morocco and the African region,” said Badr El Hourari, founder and CIO, xHub. “With Java 22, I’m excited to see Oracle’s Java team focus on innovation that will help the new developers adopt Java more quickly such as with JEP 463. By simplifying the language, the on-ramp to Java becomes easier for a whole new generation of programmers. Also, here in Morocco we continue to highlight the importance of Java at the annual Devoxx Morocco conference, and we welcome all developers to attend this year’s event on October 2-4 to hear from some of the most influential global voices in the Java community.”
“It amazes me to see Java 22 bundle features for all – from students to senior developers, and from adventurous Java enthusiasts to organizations looking for stability with performance,” said Mala Gupta, Java developer advocate, JetBrains. “Java is embracing a minimalist approach by continuing to reduce ceremonies around writing initial steps of code, via instance main method and implicit classes, making it easier for folks to get started learning Java. With constructor makeover (statements before super[…]), Java has proven again that it supports responsible innovation, and relaxing language constraints that existed from Java’s version 1.0 without breaking any existing code is very exciting. IntelliJ IDEA 2024.1 is ready with its support for Java 22 features to enable Java developers to use them with ease.”
“The Helidon team recognized the value of virtual threads as soon as they were announced. With Helidon 4, the team rewrote the Helidon web server to natively use virtual threads, which resulted in much better performance and increased developer productivity,” said Tom Snyder, vice president of engineering, enterprise cloud native Java, Oracle. “Now with Java 22 we are seeing another performance boost for virtual threads, and these significant improvements will benefit all Helidon users.”
“Seamless integration with the latest Java innovations is helping Oracle Database deliver the world’s most advanced database technologies for developing and running modern applications,” said Kuassi Mensah, director of product management, Oracle. “The Oracle Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) drivers have been rewritten to seamlessly support Java virtual threads. The combination of Java virtual threads and the new pipelined database operations in Oracle Database 23c helps improve end-to-end scalability for Java applications.”
To learn more about Java and its global ecosystem, please visit:
Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com.
Oracle, Java, MySQL and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company—ushering in the new era of cloud computing.