NIST HQC (Post-Quantum Backup KEM)

A dated reading of what is claimed, reported, and independently verified in the current evidence.

Current reading

The readiness gap, in one scan

AI-assisted assembly · derived results

Evidence strength Growing

Decision

Human editorial judgment · 2026-06-28

Track; not yet

Why: HQC is explicitly a fallback, not standardized until ~2027, with much larger payloads and less-mature libraries — premature to adopt but worth tracking for crypto-agility.
Next: Continue ML-KEM (FIPS 203) migration now; monitor the HQC draft FIPS in 2026 and design KEM-agility so HQC can slot in as a hybrid backup later.

Constraints

No named blocker is present in the current public projection.

Evidence summary

AI-assisted assembly

Counts and dates only. Raw signals, private excerpts, trust records, and internal corpus material are not published here.

Publication record

Initial public reading

This is the initial public reading. No earlier readiness change is recorded.