Release new version

[waipeng]

Use Case

The current version v8.0.0 is released about a year ago and there are 48 changes since. Some of the changes are really useful, like bumping dependency versions which will allow us to use newer libraries, etc.

Describe the Solution You Would Like

Release a new version.

Additional Context

I am happy to help with additional PRs to help with this.

[deric]

Yes, that would be great. There are quite a few changes already and few more PR for next major release. cc @Ramesh7 @GSPatton @david22swan