Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) released Java 27 on Sept. 15, 2026, introducing nine JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs) covering security, performance, and developer productivity improvements.

A key feature of the release is post-quantum cryptography support, specifically hybrid key exchange for TLS 1.3 (JEP 527), designed to address "harvest now, decrypt later" security threats. Oracle also added PEM encoding for cryptographic objects (JEP 538, third preview) and JFR in-process data redaction (JEP 536).

Performance updates include compact object headers enabled by default (JEP 534), which Oracle says reduces JVM memory overhead, and a change making the G1 garbage collector the default across all environments (JEP 523). The Vector API advances to its 12th incubator iteration (JEP 537), targeting analytics and AI inference workloads.

Other JEPs include Structured Concurrency in its seventh preview (JEP 533), Primitive Types in Patterns in its fifth preview (JEP 532), and Lazy Constants in its third preview (JEP 531).

Oracle is also releasing aligned updates across its Java ecosystem. Helidon 27, the company's open-source microservices framework, now aligns its version numbering and release cadence with OpenJDK. JavaFX 27 adds a metal rendering pipeline on macOS and expanded text editing controls. Oracle Jipher 20, which wraps a FIPS 140-3 validated OpenSSL cryptographic module, is now included in the Oracle Java Verified Portfolio and adds support for ML-KEM and ML-DSA post-quantum algorithms.

Oracle is separately highlighting JDK 28 early access, which previews Project Valhalla, an effort to introduce value classes intended to improve data representation efficiency. Project Leyden, aimed at improving startup time and memory footprint through ahead-of-time compilation, is also in progress.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is described as the first cloud provider to support Oracle JDK 27. Java SE and the Java Management Service are available at no additional charge on that platform.

The information in this article is based on a press release issued by Oracle.