Open source tea leaves: Reading Iceberg’s proposed future

Apache Iceberg is a paradox: when it’s working best, you might not even know you’re using it, let alone how it works. It’s been declared the winner of the table format wars, yet questions about its future and mainstream adoption persist. How do you make sense of both?

In this peer discussion session, we’ll look for clues in the proposals shaping Iceberg’s possible futures. You’ll join a small group to read a proposal, unpack the problem it aims to solve, and debate its trade-offs. What do these changes reveal about where Iceberg works well today—and where new demands are pushing its limits?

Together, we’ll use those concrete design choices to examine a bigger question: how might Iceberg evolve to support the workloads, expectations, and pressures of the AI era?