Project Valhalla has been Java's most anticipated, slowest arriving feature for over a decade. On June 15, 2026, Oracle engineer Lois Foltan confirmed JEP 401 (Value Classes and Objects) is integrating into OpenJDK mainline, targeting a preview in JDK 28.
The scale is significant: 197,000 lines across 1,816 files. Oracle described it as the biggest change to Java's object model since the language's creation in 1995.
If you have heard "Valhalla" mentioned for years without anything shipping, this is the moment something concrete actually lands.
The problem it solves
In Java, everything except eight primitive types is a reference type. Write Point p = new Point(1, 2) and p is not a point, it is a pointer to an object on the heap. For a million-element array of Point objects, you get a million scattered pointers, each requiring a separate dereference.
