Bare-metal Rust in Android

Google’s Android Rust Team describes rewriting the Android Virtualization Framework’s protected VM firmware in Rust to harden bare-metal components and reduce memory-safety risks associated with prior U-Boot-based code. They highlight contributions to the Rust ecosystem (e.g., virtio-drivers, PSCI/SMCCC, page table management), share training outcomes, and discuss practical benefits and challenges of bare-metal Rust—such as handling MMIO, concurrency without locks, unsafe encapsulation boundaries, binary size, and architecture support—while outlining plans to expand Rust use in Trusty and future Android devices.