Canonical has accelerated Ubuntu kernel releases from a four-week regular and two-week security cycle to weekly releases in response to an explosion in reported vulnerabilities. The acceleration is driven by AI-assisted bug discovery tools and the Linux kernel community's decision in 2024 to assign CVE identifiers to thousands of kernel flaws, creating a significant backlog of patches that vendors must deliver.

Under the new system, overlapping two-week cycles mean a kernel release ships every week. The first week involves integrating patches, building packages, and basic checks, with release candidates published to Ubuntu's -proposed repository; the second week covers hardware certification and regression testing before public release. Organisations can opt for faster access by testing release candidates themselves after week one, whilst Canonical aims to provide workarounds or hardening recommendations within 24 to 48 hours of vulnerability disclosure to reduce exposure time between public disclosure and patch availability.