I'm not up to date on ETH, but is this the same fabled upgrade that people have been talking about for years now? The concept sounds like it could have real potential.
Yep that's it. As of now they have a multi-client testnet running a near-final version of the beacon chain, using proof of stake. Assuming all goes well, they'll launch for real later this year.
The sharding design is integrated with that but won't actually be implemented until next year. First version of sharding will only store data; execution on shards will be after that.
The other thing going on is various layer-two systems called "rollups" which compress on-chain data to a minimum and prove its validity with either fraud proofs or a cryptographic zero-knowledge proof. Some of those are in or near production and can take today's Ethereum to about 2000 tx/sec, for simple transactions like transfers and exchanges. The data-only phase of sharding will multiply that by the number of shards.
