Last year, the PQCA founded the PQ Code Package project with the aim to develop production-ready, high-assurance implementations of Post-Quantum Cryptography standards. Today, we highlight the first stable release under the PQCP, mlkem-native-v1: An implementation of NIST’s FIPS-203 / ML-KEM Post-Quantum Cryptography standard that is designed to be secure, fast, and easy to use.
First, mlkem-native builds on the popular and time-vetted ML-KEM reference implementation, but is retrofitted to the C90 language standard for maximum portability.
Next, mlkem-native provides backend interfaces for the seamless integration of optimized native code (e.g. assembler), and ships with high-performance backends for Arm64 and x86_64 giving it state of the art performance on most Arm64, Intel and AMD platforms. These high-performance backends build on years of research into ML-KEM, and leverage the SLOTHY superoptimizer for assembly-level microarchitectural super-optimization. Compared to the C reference implementation, mlkem-native offers a ~3x performance improvement.
Finally, mlkem-native is extensively formally verified: The C Bounded Model Checker (CBMC) is used at the C source level to show memory-safety and type-safety, covering both buffer overflows as well as integer overflows from incorrect implementation of the arithmetic underlying ML-KEM. Moreover, all AArch64 assembly in mlkem-native is verified for functional correctness using the HOL-Light theorem prover.
mlkem-native is already integrated into libOQS and AWS-LC. If you need a fast, secure and portable ML-KEM implementation, give it a try!
Want to get involved? Join our community meetings and contribute to the future of post-quantum cryptography – connect with us on the PQCA Discord. Have suggestions or feature requests? Open an issue on GitHub to share your ideas with the community.
Links and References
- To learn more about the PQCA, visit here.
- Join the PQCA community – https://pqca.org/join/
- For details about ml-kem native, visit here.
- For further discussion, please feel free to contact us
- Interact with the community – Get involved
- Contribute to project development here
- Deep dive in to Post Quantum Cryptography Alliance blogpost
- PQCA and NIST’s post-quantum standards blogpost
- PQCA announces Alpha release of ml-kem native blogpost
- A sub-project, open quantum safe, under the PQCA umbrella.
- A sub-project, PQ-Code package, under the PQCA umbrella.
- NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography
- Cryptography Bill of Material (CBOM)
- Please follow PQCA official LinkedIn page – https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-quantum-cryptography-alliance
- Please follow PQCA official X account – https://x.com/PQCAorg