libjpeg-turbo is a derivative of libjpeg that uses SIMD instructions (MMX, SSE2, NEON) to accelerate baseline JPEG compression and decompression on x86, x86-64, and ARM systems.  On such systems, libjpeg-turbo is generally 2-4x as fast as the unmodified version of libjpeg, all else being equal.

libjpeg-turbo was originally based on libjpeg/SIMD by Miyasaka Masaru, but the TigerVNC and VirtualGL projects made numerous enhancements to the codec in 2009, including improved support for Mac OS X, 64-bit support, support for 32-bit and big-endian pixel formats (RGBX, XBGR, etc.), accelerated Huffman encoding/decoding, and various bug fixes.  The goal was to produce a fully open-source codec whose performance rivaled that of popular closed-source codecs available at the time.

In early 2010, libjpeg-turbo spun off into its own independent project, with the goal of making high-speed JPEG compression/decompression technology available to a broader range of users and developers.