libjpeg-turbo is a JPEG image codec that uses SIMD instructions (MMX, SSE2, NEON, AltiVec) to accelerate baseline JPEG compression and decompression on x86, x86-64, ARM, and PowerPC systems.  On such systems, libjpeg-turbo is generally 2-6x as fast as libjpeg, all else being equal.  On other types of systems, libjpeg-turbo can still outperform libjpeg by a significant amount, by virtue of its highly-optimized Huffman coding routines.  In many cases, the performance of libjpeg-turbo rivals that of proprietary high-speed JPEG codecs.

libjpeg-turbo implements both the traditional libjpeg API as well as the less powerful but more straightforward TurboJPEG API.  libjpeg-turbo also features colorspace extensions that allow it to compress from/decompress to 32-bit and big-endian pixel buffers (RGBX, XBGR, etc.), as well as a full-featured Java interface.

libjpeg-turbo was originally based on libjpeg/SIMD, an MMX-accelerated derivative of libjpeg v6b developed by Miyasaka Masaru.  The TigerVNC and VirtualGL projects made numerous enhancements to the codec in 2009, and in early 2010, libjpeg-turbo spun off into an independent project, with the goal of making high-speed JPEG compression/decompression technology available to a broader range of users and developers.