India, Dec. 24 -- A project being quietly researched at Microsoft is something many systems engineers consider impossible. Could AI systems systematically rewrite large amounts of C/C++ source code, much of which resides in the Windows operating system, both effectively and efficiently?

Inside Microsoft, engineering teams are experimenting with AI systems that can analyze, understand, and refactor massive codebases into Rust, a programming language known for stronger memory safety guarantees. The timeline often mentioned is 2030, though Microsoft stresses this is a research effort rather than a firm product commitment. Still, the experiment offers a rare look at how AI could reshape the future of operating system development.

It was Gal...