Werner Koch released libgcrypt 1.12 as the newest feature release to this library providing the cryptographic building blocks used by GnuPG and other software like email clients, file encryption utilities, and other software.

Most exciting for end-users with libgcrypt 1.12 is adding an VAES/AVX-512 accelerated implementation for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). With this new AVX-512/VAES implementation, AES-OCB "Offset Codebook" is around two times faster on AMD Zen 5 processors thanks to their [1]AVX-512 support across the board from consumer CPUs through server platforms.

Libgcrypt 1.12 also adds AVX2 and AVX-512 code paths for improved CRC performance. There are also some optimizations for avoiding AVX-512/AVX2/SSSE3 use for single-block processing with ChaCha20 or for Blake2. Plus there are some RISC-V Vector implementations for different crypto optimizations and other enhancements.

Libgcrypt 1.12 also brings Dilithium (ML-DSA) support.

Downloads and more details on this important cryptographic library update via [2]the GnuPG mailing list .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/AVX-512

[2] https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-announce/2026q1/000502.html