Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform for automating deployment, scaling, and operations of application containers. Developed by Google, Kubernetes manages containerized applications across a cluster of machines, ensuring that they run reliably and efficiently. It provides features such as automatic scaling, load balancing, rolling updates, and self-healing capabilities. Kubernetes abstracts the underlying hardware, allowing developers to focus on building applications rather than managing infrastructure. It has become the de facto standard for container orchestration, widely adopted in both cloud and on-premises environments to enhance application scalability, availability, and resilience.