Why make ID in sha1 format?

Question

Database

In our database, instead of a simple ordinal number, the sha1 format string is used as the record ID.
Olds say that this gives a uniform distribution of data across the cluster during storage and processing.
How is this to be understood and what is it for? Does it affect access speed or something else?

Answer 1

To obtain a fixed length surrogate key from a variable length natural key.