Chaperonins are a type of molecular chaperone that assist in the folding of proteins. Group
II
chaperonins play an important role in the proteostasis in the cytosol of archaea and eukarya. In this study, we expressed, purified, and characterized group
II
chaperonins from an acidothermophilic archaeon
Picrophilus torridus
. Two genes exist for group
II
chaperonins, and both of the gene products assemble to form double‐ring complexes similar to other archaeal group
II
chaperonins. One of the
Picrophilus
chaperonins, Pto
CPN
α, was able to refold denatured
GFP
at 50 °C. As expected, Pto
CPN
α exhibited an
ATP
‐dependent conformational change that is observed by the change in fluorescence and diffracted X‐ray tracking (
DXT
). In contrast, Pto
CPN
α lost its protein folding ability at moderate temperatures, becoming unable to interact with unfolded proteins. At lower temperatures, the release rate of the captured
GFP
from Pto
CPN
α was accelerated, and the affinity of denatured protein to Pto
CPN
α was weakened at the lower temperatures. Unexpectedly, in the
DXT
experiment, the fine motions were enhanced at the lower temperatures. Taken together, the results suggest that the fine tilting motions of the apical domain might correlate with the affinity of group
II
chaperonins for denatured proteins.