ML-KEM·Key encapsulation·NIST level 1

ML-KEM-512

ML-KEM (FIPS 203) is a lattice-based key encapsulation mechanism, standardized by NIST in August 2024. It replaces RSA and elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman for establishing shared secrets in a post-quantum world.

ML-KEM-512 targets NIST security level 1 — the lowest of the standardized parameter sets. Most deployments choosing a post-quantum KEM today select ML-KEM-768 (level 3) as the default; 512 is benchmarked here for completeness and for constrained environments, not as a general recommendation.

Latest run2026-07-07 09:32 UTC
commitbfd529d
CPU
Xeon Platinum 8259CL @ 2.50GHz
Instance
t3.mediumburstable
OS / Kernel
24.04.4 LTS
liboqs
0.15.0
Wall clock
49m 51s
CPU steal
0.83%

Parameters

Family
ML-KEM
Parameter set
512
Public key
800 B
Private key
1.59 KB
Ciphertext
768 B
Iterations / op
1,000
liboqs key
ML-KEM-512
keygenGenerate a fresh key pair.
54 of 54 runs
Mean
23.1 µs
Median
22.3 µs
p95
25.1 µs
p99
42.7 µs
Stdev
5.3 µs
Min
17.6 µs
Ops/sec
43,325
Mean over time

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encapEncapsulate: produce a shared secret and ciphertext under the recipient's public key.
54 of 54 runs
Mean
23.7 µs
Median
23.6 µs
p95
29.0 µs
p99
48.6 µs
Stdev
37.3 µs
Min
14.6 µs
Ops/sec
42,193
Mean over time

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decapDecapsulate: recover the shared secret from the ciphertext using the private key.
54 of 54 runs
Mean
15.7 µs
Median
15.2 µs
p95
15.8 µs
p99
26.3 µs
Stdev
4.7 µs
Min
15.0 µs
Ops/sec
63,674
Mean over time

Click any point to view the GitHub Actions run that produced it.