What data type does a suspend function in Kotlin return?

A suspend function in Kotlin returns a result of a type corresponding to the declared return type of the function, but itself, when called, returns an object of type kotlin.coroutines.Continuation under the hood, which manages the continuation of execution.

From the perspective of the calling code, a suspend function behaves like a function that returns a value of type T (if declared as suspend fun foo(): T), but execution can be suspended and resumed without blocking the thread.

Example:

suspend fun fetchData(): String {
    delay(1000) // suspends execution for 1 second
    return "Data"
}

Here, fetchData returns a String, but the suspend function itself allows asynchronously waiting for the result without blocking.