On August 13, 2024, NIST published the first three finalized post-quantum cryptography standards as Federal Information Processing Standards. FIPS 203 specifies ML-KEM (based on CRYSTALS-Kyber) for general encryption and key encapsulation. FIPS 204 specifies ML-DSA (based on CRYSTALS-Dilithium) for digital signatures. FIPS 205 specifies SLH-DSA (based on SPHINCS+) as an alternative hash-based signature standard.
The standards were the product of an eight-year international competition initiated in 2016, during which NIST assessed 82 candidate algorithms from 25 countries. A fourth standard based on FALCON (FIPS 206) was planned for release later in 2024. The White House convened officials and industry partners on the same date to discuss PQC migration progress.