Once the Round 2 report is complete, a formal public announcement of the AES selection will be made, and the report will be made available on the AES Home Page . Approximately one month after the AES announcement, NIST intends to release a draft version of the AES standard. Simultaneously, a Federal Register announcement will request public comments on that draft. Once the comment period is complete, NIST will resolve the comments, as appropriate, and then propose the final AES standard for signing by the Secretary of Commerce. While the draft AES is undergoing public comment, NIST will begin developing an AES Modes of Operation standard.
More information is available at .
Additionally, NIST will begin to develop validation tests for the AES, so that conformance testing can begin simultaneously with the publication of the AES standard.