What's new and changed in Analytics Engine powered by Apache Spark

Analytics Engine powered by Apache Spark updates can include new features and fixes. Releases are listed in reverse chronological order so that the latest release is at the beginning of the topic.

You can see a list of the new features for the platform and all of the services at What's new in IBM Software Hub.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data Version 5.4.0

A new version of Analytics Engine powered by Apache Spark was released in June 2026.

This release includes the following changes:

Service deprecation: Analytics Engine powered by Apache Spark is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. To ensure a smooth transition for existing Analytics Engine powered by Apache Spark workloads, you can continue to run equivalent Spark capabilities using IBM® watsonx.data™ Premium, which includes built‑in Spark. This approach provides functional parity for supported Analytics Engine powered by Apache Spark workloads. However, additional capabilities available in watsonx.data Premium are outside the scope of this replacement.
Customer-reported issues fixed in this release: For a list of customer-reported issues that were fixed in this release, see the Fix List for IBM Cloud Pak for Data on the IBM Support website.