--- title: Canonical and UK’s University of Bristol partner to... description: Canonical is funding a three-year PhD research project with the University of Bristol to build a platform that automatically translates large C codebases into... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Canonical and UK’s University of Bristol partner to investigate automated C to Rust translations | daily.dev og:description: Canonical is funding a three-year PhD research project with the University of Bristol to build a platform that automatically translates large C codebases into... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/AUDHEmBrp.png og:image:alt: Canonical and UK’s University of Bristol partner to investigate automated C to Rust translations og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Canonical and UK’s University of Bristol partner to investigate automated C to Rust translations **[InfoWorld](https://daily.dev/sources/infoworld)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Canonical is funding a three-year PhD research project with the University of Bristol to build a platform that automatically translates large C codebases into idiomatic, behaviorally correct Rust. Led by Professor Meng Wang with Canonical's Jon Seager and Dr. Cristina David as co-supervisors, the project combines machine learning translation with formal program analysis and validation to avoid the pitfalls of naive source-to-source translators and unreliable LLM output. The proposed architecture has four stages: scheduling, translation, validation, and debugging/repair. AppArmor and snap-confine are named as case studies, though Canonical stresses this is not a commitment to replace them. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Is Canonical funding a project to automatically translate C code into Rust? Yes, Canonical and UK Research and Innovation are funding a three-year PhD project at the University of Bristol to build a platform that translates large C repositories into behaviorally correct, idiomatic Rust. Professor Meng Wang leads the project, with Canonical's Jon Seager and Dr. Cristina David as co-supervisors of PhD student Alex Wood. _Teams weighing a move away from C toward Rust can follow migration research like this on daily.dev._ ### Why can't large language models alone reliably translate C code to Rust? LLMs can produce convincing, idiomatic Rust but struggle with repository-scale context and offer no guarantee the translated program behaves like the original source. Plausible-looking output is not evidence of correctness, so generated code must be treated as untrusted until validated against the source's actual behavior through separate program analysis. _daily.dev helps developers evaluating AI-assisted code translation stay current on validation techniques._ ### What Ubuntu components are being used as case studies for C to Rust translation research? AppArmor and snap-confine, two Ubuntu security components, are the targeted case studies for Canonical's C-to-Rust translation research. Canonical clarified this is not a commitment to replace either component with generated Rust code, but reflects a vested interest in seeing how the translation system performs on real, security-sensitive software. _daily.dev keeps developers tracking Rust adoption in core Linux security tooling up to date._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Canonical backs quest to translate mountains of C into safe Rust with AI](https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-backs-quest-to-translate-mountains-of-c-into-safe-rust-with-ai-s3vchgqgx) · The Register · 6 upvotes · 1 comments - [Automatically Translating C to Rust – Communications of the ACM](https://daily.dev/posts/automatically-translating-c-to-rust-communications-of-the-acm-o6bpcy6bu) · Hacker News · 5 upvotes · 1 comments - [Ubuntu Rust: How Canonical Is Modernizing Core System Tools](https://daily.dev/posts/ubuntu-rust-how-canonical-is-modernizing-core-system-tools-6irulsi7d) · JetBrains · 6 upvotes · 0 comments - [Canonical Joins the Rust Foundation as a Gold Member](https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-joins-the-rust-foundation-as-a-gold-member-6dsn3gmgy) · Rust Foundation · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#rust](https://daily.dev/tags/rust), [#c](https://daily.dev/tags/c) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Canonical and UK’s University of Bristol partner to investigate automated C to Rust translations","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp"},"datePublished":"2026-08-20T21:02:06.816Z","dateModified":"2026-08-21T09:26:41.969Z","description":"Canonical is funding a three-year PhD research project with the University of Bristol to build a platform that automatically translates large C codebases into...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5ec9eb393cfa84eb85208d52788e66a1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5ec9eb393cfa84eb85208d52788e66a1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"InfoWorld","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"InfoWorld","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/bf6d68a999064029b0bb09aa6268f1f3","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/infoworld"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"rust,c","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"InfoWorld","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/infoworld"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Canonical and UK’s University of Bristol partner to investigate automated C to Rust translations"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/canonical-and-uk-s-university-of-bristol-partner-to-investigate-automated-c-to-rust-translations-audhembrp#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Is Canonical funding a project to automatically translate C code into Rust?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, Canonical and UK Research and Innovation are funding a three-year PhD project at the University of Bristol to build a platform that translates large C repositories into behaviorally correct, idiomatic Rust. 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