Releasesby GlyphNote : Your clusters might not have these versions available
Note : Your clusters might not have these versions available. Rollouts are already in progress when we publish the release notes, and can take multiple days to complete across all Google Cloud zones. Version 1.36.4-gke.1082000 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Rapid channel.
Also shipped Sep 8, 2026Google Cloud in September 2026 →
Add and drop hybrid table constraints online (General availability)
With this release, you can add and drop UNIQUE and FOREIGN KEY constraints on an existing hybrid table by using alter table . Previously, you had to define these constraints when you created the table, so adding a foreign key to a table that was already serving a workload meant recreating and reloading the table.
Shadow traffic for gateways (Preview)
With this preview release, you can use a shadow traffic gateway to send all production requests to a primary service endpoint while mirroring a percentage of those requests to one or more shadow endpoints. Responses from shadow endpoints aren't returned to clients.
The partner-powered AI features setting will be removed
On November 1, 2026, Databricks will remove the account- and workspace-level toggle for partner-powered AI features. Each workspace will keep its current setting value: if the setting is enabled, it stays enabled, and if it's disabled, it stays disabled. Removing the toggle doesn't change any setting values.
Incremental ingestion for Salesforce formula fields in Lakeflow Connect will soon be generally available
Incremental ingestion for Salesforce formula fields in Lakeflow Connect will soon be generally available. Today, Lakeflow Connect ingests formula fields by taking a full snapshot on each pipeline run by default. When incremental formula field ingestion is generally available, full snapshots will no longer be the default.
ABAC DENY policies are in Beta
ABAC DENY policies are in Beta in Unity Catalog. DENY policies can be used to explicitly deny the MANAGE ACCESS CONTROL privilege to prevent specified principals, including object owners, from performing access-management operations. They always take precedence over any grant. For details, see ABAC DENY policies (Beta) .
See which chunks support each ai_search answer (Beta)
You can now turn on the generate_citations option in the ai_search function to see which retrieved chunks the model used to support each answer it generates. ai_search function
More from Google Kubernetes EngineEvery Google Kubernetes Engine release →
(2026-R38) Version updates
GKE cluster versions have been updated. New versions available for upgrades and new clusters. The following versions are now available for new GKE clusters, and for manual control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information about versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and About GKE cluster upgrades .
Agent Substrate on GKE is now available for evaluation and non-production use
Agent Substrate on GKE is now available for evaluation and non-production use. Production support is offered on an allowlist basis under a limited GA program. Agent Substrate runs agentic workloads at scale on GKE clusters. To reduce resource usage, Agent Substrate suspends idle agents and takes a snapshot of the agent's active memory (RAM) and local files.
Kubernetes 1.37 is available
Kubernetes 1.37 is now available in the Rapid channel. For more information about the content of Kubernetes 1.37, read the Kubernetes 1.37 Release Notes and Kubernetes 1.37 Release Blog .
Removed in 1.37
- Identity Service for GKE is no longer supported starting in GKE 1.37: Creating new clusters or upgrading existing clusters to GKE version 1.37 or later with Identity Service for GKE enabled is blocked. For external OIDC authentication, please migrate to Workforce Identity Federation .
Other changes in 1.37
- Starting with GKE version 1.37.0-gke.2100000, newly created clusters default to using control plane node creation, which improves cluster security by having the control plane manage node registration instead of kubelet self-registration. Existing clusters are not affected.
New features in 1.37
- The PodCertificateRequest and ClusterTrustBundle APIs are generally available and promoted to certificates.k8s.io/v1. DRA device metadata publishing is enabled with beta support (for use with DRA drivers which include this feature). HorizontalPodAutoscaler enables beta support for scaling to zero . StatefulSet maxUnavailable support is now enabled.
GKE support for using the c3-standard-*-lssd machine types as Confidential GKE Nodes with Intel TDX is...
GKE support for using the c3-standard-*-lssd machine types as Confidential GKE Nodes with Intel TDX is generally available. For more information, see the following: To use this feature with GKE, see Encrypt workload data in-use with Confidential GKE Nodes . To learn more about the feature from Compute Engine, see Confidential VM overview .
(2026-R37) Version updates
GKE cluster versions have been updated. New versions available for upgrades and new clusters. The following versions are now available for new GKE clusters, and for manual control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information about versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and About GKE cluster upgrades .