PostgreSQL 18, set for release in September, introduces features aimed at enhancing analytics capabilities and distributed architectures, including a new asynchronous I/O subsystem that significantly boosts performance for analytical workloads. The update also upgrades UUIDs to version 7 to improve database index performance in distributed systems, although some anticipated SQL features will be delayed. Despite its growing popularity among developers, PostgreSQL has traditionally been more associated with online transaction processing rather than analytics.