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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Microsoft and Linux are adding AI and Rust to their pipelines.
• Microsoft is leaning much harder into AI development than Linux.
• Both are expanding Rust, but neither OS will be fully Rust soon.

Recently, Galen Hunt, a Microsoft distinguished engineer, wrote: “My goal is to eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030. Our strategy is to combine AI and algorithms to rewrite Microsoft's largest codebases” and to “evolve and augment our infrastructure to enable translating Microsoft's largest C and C++ systems to Rust.” 

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If that sounds to you like Microsoft is going to rewrite Windows using AI from C to Rust, you're not alone. Hunt has since backed away from that interpretation, writing, “Windows is not being rewritten in Rust with AI.”

Still, one cannot help but wonder. After all, Hunt continued, “We are building tech to make migration from language to language possible,” which is what you'd need to do first if you did want to move Windows from C to Rust. And Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said 20% to 30% of Microsoft's code was “written by software,” that is, AI. 

And, far earlier, in 2022, Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich tweeted, “It's time to halt starting any new projects in C/C++ and use Rust … For the sake of security and reliability. The industry should declare those languages as deprecated.”

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Microsoft isn't alone. As I've been covering for some time now, the Linux developer community is also deeply engaging with AI and Rust. As Linus Torvalds himself recently declared himself “a huge believer” in using AI to maintain code. 

Maintainers and developers are now using AI to help build Linux. Simultaneously, Rust has graduated to being a co-equal language with C for…