The SD Association, the group responsible for setting the standards for memory cards, announced the new SD 8.0 specification for SD Express cards. The new specification allows cards to transfer data at a rate of almost four gigabytes per second, largely thanks to the use of PCI Express 4.0 and NVMe interfaces commonly found in SSDs. This faster transfer rate can be very useful as new technologies, such as 8K video, create larger and larger files.
According to the official SD Association documentation, the SD 8.0 specification allows for transfer speeds of at 3,938 megabytes per second. This is a considerable increase compared to the speeds of at 985 megabytes per second offered by cards based on the SD 7.0 and SD 7.1 specifications, which use the PCI Express 3.1 interface.
Among the novelties we will have memory cards, NVMe PCIe SSDs of 4 generation, and NVMe PCIe SSDs for d …
The SD Association has confirmed that the new SD 8.0 specification will be available for SDHC, SDXC and SDUC memory cards. In the case of SDUC cards, the maximum storage capacity currently supported 128TB.
Although the SD 8.0 specification has been officially announced, it may take a while for the first memory cards based on it to reach the market. The rest now depends on the manufacturers, who will have to work to implement the specification in new products. You will also need devices compatible with the new specification, such as laptops, camera, and memory card readers to take full advantage of high speed.
The image below shows a comparison between the different SD specifications and the maximum transfer speeds supported, starting with SD 1.01 and its 12.5 megabytes per second:

The new SD 8.0 specification brings new storage opportunities for devices with demanding performance levels in a variety of sectors. Cards based on it will be able to move large amounts of data generated by wireless or wired communication, super slow camera video, 8K video capture and playback, continuous RAW format photo capture, 360 degree cameras / videos, applications with hunger for speed running on memory cards and mobile devices, constantly evolving gaming systems, multichannel and automotive IoT devices, to name a few ".– SD Association
Cards based on the new specification will be backwards compatible with the previous ones, but the speeds will be limited according to the supported specification by the reader or the device where the card based on the SD 8.0 specification is inserted. The SD Association believes that the first products based on the SD 8.0 specification could reach the market j at the end of 2020. Companies like Samsung, Sony and other memory card manufacturers are expected to announce news in the coming months.