The article shows how to check if a Linux CPU supports AES‑NI, Intel’s hardware‑accelerated AES instruction set. It explains what AES‑NI is, why it speeds up encryption, and then lists three easy methods: use cpuid and grep for “aes”, grep the /proc/cpuinfo file, or run lscpu and look for the “aes” flag. If none of these commands report AES‑NI, the CPU relies on slower software encryption, which is still secure. The first CPUs to expose this feature were Intel’s Westmere chips in 2010. In the CPUID specification the flag is simply called AES (bit 25 of ECX). The “NI” (New Instructions) part is just a marketing name for the feature set. There isn’t a distinct “aes_ni” bit in the CPUID leaf. So, when you run <tt>lscpu | grep -i aes or cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep aes</tt>, the presence of aes tells you that the CPU supports AES‑NI. There is no separate aes_ni flag because the kernel already uses the more concise aes.
Intel Core i7 1280P "Alder Lake P" Linux Laptop Performance
