Microsoft rolls out hardware-accelerated BitLocker in Windows 11

Microsoft is introducing hardware-accelerated BitLocker in Windows 11 24H2/25H2, offloading XTS-AES-256 cryptographic operations to SoC components (HSM/TEE) to significantly reduce CPU usage (about 70% fewer CPU cycles per I/O in tests) and improve security by keeping keys in hardware rather than CPU/memory. Initial support targets Intel vPro systems with Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake), with broader SoC support planned; users can verify by running `manage-bde -status` and checking for Hardware accelerated under Encryption Method, while unsupported algorithms, enterprise policies, custom key sizes, or certain FIPS configurations will trigger a fallback to software-based BitLocker.