On 1 October 2025, the Adoptium community gathered virtually for the Adoptium Summit, a half-day event dedicated to discussing the technical advantages of Adoptium, applications of Eclipse Temurin, migration success stories, and experiences with AQAvit and other projects. The summit brought together project committers, contributors, adopters, and partners for over four hours of presentations, demos, and lightning talks.
This year’s theme reflected the community’s enduring commitment to quality, collaboration, and open innovation. Across all sessions, one message came through clearly: Adoptium’s open, vendor-neutral model continues to drive meaningful progress for Java users and open source contributors worldwide.
Strengthening the software supply chain
I opened the summit and introduced the first speaker of the day, Kenji Kazumura. His session on securing the Java software supply chain with Adoptium outlined how the team is leveraging sandboxing technologies to enhance the security of Temurin builds and infrastructure.
By combining seccomp and AppArmor, Adoptium strengthens isolation within containerised environments, preventing unauthorised system calls and mitigating potential vulnerabilities. Kenji connected this work to the community’s wider efforts around supply-chain security, ensuring that Temurin builds continue to meet the highest verification standards.
Security remained a recurrent theme throughout the day, an area where transparency, reproducibility, and open collaboration continue to serve as Adoptium’s strongest assets.
From rule-based automation to AI-driven tools
In his lightning talk, Denghui Dong presented “Evolving EMT4J: From rule-based automation to AI agent”. He described how EMT4J, the Eclipse Migration Toolkit for Java, is transitioning from rule-based detection to a more intelligent, AI-assisted system that learns from data and user feedback.
This evolution will allow developers to assess and automate migration paths between Java versions with greater accuracy and speed. By embedding AI into the workflow, Adoptium continues to simplify one of the most time-consuming aspects of enterprise Java adoption: managing upgrades securely and efficiently.
Growing the next generation of open source developers
Community growth was at the heart of Noah Tayebwa and Jessy Ssebuliba’s inspiring talk, “From first contribution to paid OSS developer: How Adoptium’s new contributors programme changed our professional lives”.
Both speakers shared their journey from first-time contributors to professional open source developers. They described how mentorship, community engagement, and collaboration across Adoptium projects had helped them build technical expertise and confidence. Their message was clear: open source is a pathway to opportunity, not only for individuals but for the sustainability of the ecosystem itself.
Their experience reflected the success of Adoptium’s contributors programme, which has introduced dozens of new participants through initiatives such as Google Summer of Code and Semesters of Code.
Keeping Temurin strong. A committer’s perspective
During her session, Shelley Lambert discussed the Adoptium Sustainer Program from a committer’s perspective. She explained why Temurin releases can land a little later than some distributions: no early access to TCK materials, and mid-year team changes in the private Temurin Compliance project that required onboarding new committers. Shelley also outlined the Q2 “miracle”: rapid automation work that shortens the compliance effort. She closed by noting progress on reproducible builds, and inviting contributions and sustainers across all areas.
Showcasing open source in action: Eclipse Tradista on Temurin
In another lightning talk, Oliver Asunción demonstrated the practical impact of open source technology through his session Running Eclipse Tradista on Temurin: An open source stack for financial institutions.
Oliver showcased how Eclipse Tradista, a front-office platform for capital markets, integrates Eclipse Temurin as its main Java runtime. Designed for banks and financial institutions, Tradista’s modular, distributed architecture supports trading, position management, and market-data handling while maintaining full transparency and flexibility.
Oliver emphasised why Temurin was a “natural choice”: its open source, vendor-neutral model, EPL-2.0 commercial-friendly licence, and strong community support. By using Jakarta EE, Fix protocol standards, and containerised deployment options, Tradista illustrates how enterprise-grade financial software can thrive entirely within an open source stack.
AI-enhanced testing in open source
The session “Commit to quality: AI-enhanced testing in open source”, delivered by Shelley Lambert, Lan Xia, and Longyu Zhang, explored how the Eclipse AQAvit project is embedding artificial intelligence into its testing ecosystem.
As part of Adoptium’s quality assurance framework, Eclipse AQAvit ensures that OpenJDK distributions meet rigorous testing and performance standards. Shelley began by outlining AQAvit’s mission “to make quality certain to happen” and explained how testing activities span design, automation, execution, triage, and reporting.
The session concluded with reflections on lessons learned: challenges with data preparation and the difficulty of validating AI results. Despite these hurdles, the team’s progress demonstrates how AI can enhance reliability, automate complex testing processes, and keep open source quality moving forward.
Celebrating 30 years of Java
In “30 years of Java - How did we get here?”, Simon Ritter, Deputy CTO at Azul, took attendees on a journey through the evolution of Java, from its roots in the early 1990s Project Green at Sun Microsystems to its thriving ecosystem today.
Simon recalled Java’s early vision as a platform for interactive web applications. He detailed milestones like the creation of the Java Community Process (JCP), Sun’s decision to open source Java in 2006, and the shift to time-based releases introduced by Oracle in 2018.
Beyond the technology, Simon highlighted Java’s enduring community spirit, from Java User Groups and conferences to the Java Champions network. He concluded with optimism that the platform’s open standards and collaborative model will sustain its vitality for decades to come.
Adoptium 2025 review and the road ahead
The summit closed with my lightning talk, Adoptium 2025 review and plan, summarising a year of remarkable progress across all Adoptium projects.
In 2025, the community reached key milestones:
- 700 million cumulative downloads and 23 million monthly downloads by August.
- 58 builds per CPU release, the highest number to date.
- Continued commitment to long-term support for JDK 8 and 11 until 2030.
These achievements are the result of dedicated maintainers and contributors who continue to deliver under increasing workloads. Our release champions, along with the TCK compliance, AQAvit, and infrastructure teams, have ensured the reliability and security of every Temurin release.
We also launched major initiatives to modernise our presence and outreach:
- A new Adoptium website, developed collaboratively by community members and the marketing team.
- The Sustainer Program and new membership tiers to engage enterprises and individuals in supporting Adoptium’s growth.
- Fresh marketing materials, newsletters, and case studies, including Bloomberg’s case study on why enterprises choose open source Java.
As we plan for 2026, our focus remains on security, automation, community engagement, and collaboration across Eclipse Foundation projects.
Looking forward
The Adoptium Summit 2025 captured what makes this community so special: a shared purpose, deep technical expertise, and a commitment to openness that continues to strengthen the entire Java ecosystem.
The discussions reinforced that Adoptium is more than a build provider; it is an example of collaborative innovation, where engineers, students, researchers, and enterprises work side by side to ensure Java remains secure, high-quality, and freely accessible.
To everyone who contributed, presented, or attended, thank you for helping us make Adoptium stronger every year.
- Watch the full recording.
