This document summarizes new features and improvements in MySQL 8.0. Key highlights include utf8mb4 becoming the default character set to support Unicode 9.0, performance improvements for utf8mb4 of up to 1800%, continued enhancements to JSON support including new functions, expanded GIS functionality including spatial reference system support, and new functions for working with UUIDs and bitwise operations. It also provides a brief history of MySQL and outlines performance improvements seen in benchmarks between MySQL versions.