Hall 5 · Exhibit 2 1 min
The NIST Standardization Process
Eight years of global competition
Competition8 years, global, opened 2016
Finalized Aug 2024FIPS 203 · 204 · 205
Added Mar 2025HQC — non-lattice backup KEM
Most dramatic casualtySIKE, broken 2022
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Threat Timeline
Scrub a cursor through 2020–2040 and watch milestones light up.
To prevent fragmentation — Apple inventing one math, Google another — NIST ran a worldwide competition. Over eight years, submissions faced brutal peer review. SIKE was the most dramatic casualty, shattered in 2022.
August 2024: (), (), () published. March 2025: selected as a fifth algorithm — a code-based providing a non-lattice backup. Additional algorithms remain under evaluation.
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Key Takeaways
- NIST ran an 8-year global competition starting in 2016 to prevent internet fragmentation
- FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), 204 (ML-DSA), 205 (SLH-DSA) finalized August 2024
- HQC selected March 2025 as a non-lattice backup KEM