On February 5, 2025, the Institute of Commercial Cryptography Standards (ICCS), operating under the Chinese Cryptography Standardization Technical Committee, launched the Next-generation Commercial Cryptographic Algorithms Program (NGCC). The program issued a global call for proposals across three categories: public-key cryptographic algorithms, cryptographic hash algorithms, and block cipher algorithms.
According to the official ICCS announcement, candidate algorithms would be evaluated for security, performance, and implementation feasibility, with standardization consideration for finalists. ICCS released draft guidelines for cryptographic hash function proposals with a public comment period ending March 15, 2025. The deadline for public-key algorithm submissions was set for June 30, 2026.
NIST mathematician Dustin Moody told New Scientist that China had previously selected PQC algorithms similar to those chosen by NIST but noted that its approach to standardization was more opaque. Chinese researchers have focused on structureless lattice methods, diverging from the algebraic lattice approaches used in NIST’s standardized algorithms.