Google Boosts Rust‑C++ Interoperability with $1M Funding: What It Means for Developers

Google is actively investing in Rust‑C++ interoperability work.

In 2021 Google joined the Rust Foundation, with Lars Bergstrom, Android platform tools and extensions director, serving as the foundation’s board chair.

On February 9, Bergstrom announced a new $1 million grant aimed at improving Rust‑C++ code interoperability, covering areas such as ABI changes, tool and build‑system support, wrapper libraries, and other identified needs.

Google’s core products consist of millions of lines of C++ code; rewriting them in Rust is impractical due to business and technical constraints.

To address this, the Rust Foundation, with Google’s support, launched the “Interop Initiative” to help organizations that rely on C++ adopt Rust more smoothly.

Google views Rust as one of its most powerful tools for solving memory‑safety problems, and its use of Rust has grown most noticeably in Android.

Android Security and Privacy Engineering VP Dave Kleidermacher noted that, based on historical vulnerability density data, Rust has proactively prevented hundreds of bugs from affecting the Android ecosystem, and the current investment aims to broaden Rust adoption across platform components.

Beyond Android, Google is actively incorporating Rust into other applications and products, including client‑side and server‑side hardware.

Rebecca Rumbul, CEO of the Rust Foundation, emphasized the need for more maintainers and contributors, stating that the ecosystem requires diverse skill sets and that open‑source projects often struggle to attract people skilled in organization and project management.

To address talent shortages, the foundation offers scholarships, participates in Google Summer of Code, and seeks collaborations with universities and training institutions to incorporate Rust‑related curricula.

Rumbul also highlighted that mentoring newcomers can increase the burden on existing teams, and she hopes organizations with compiler or language teams will take responsibility for training new contributors.

She reiterated that C++ will not disappear; instead, the goal is to work with organizations to find effective Rust solutions that complement existing C++ codebases.

This effort is not unique to Google—Microsoft also donated $1 million to the Rust Foundation this year with no attached conditions.