Intel QATlib 24.02 Brings Support For GEN 5 QAT Devices

Intel has released a new version of QATlib, their user-space support library for the QuickAssist Technology (QAT) via add-in hardware and recent Xeon Scalable processors.

New with QATlib 24.02 is adding support for QAT GEN 5 devices, heartbeat support, RAS device error reset and recovery handling, and various bug fixes.

The Intel QAT GEN 5 hardware is for the QAT 420xx series with more engines and more algorithms being supported. The QAT driver within the mainline Linux kernel added support for the next-gen QAT hardware in Linux 6.8. Now with QATlib 24.02 the user-space library is ready to go for the next-gen QuickAssist Technology accelerators for accelerating data encryption and compression.

Intel has long promoted QAT for offering better encryption and compression performance with better power efficiency. With Intel GEN 5 QAT there are more engines and more algorithms supported.

I haven't seen any public indications of when/where we'll see Intel QAT 420xx hardware but given the timing it wouldn't be surprising if we'll end up seeing the next-gen QAT within upcoming Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest processors. We'll see but in any event the open-source Linux driver support is ready now that there's the upstream support in Linux 6.8+ and the QATlib 24.02 user-space library.

QATlib 24.02 is available for download from GitHub.