Vivo's Blue River Operating System Kernel Open-Source: A "Rust Revolution" of Domestic Operating Systems

How does the operating system in the era of large AI force the kernel to evolve?

As models are installed in various intelligent terminal devices, the operating system, which connects applications above and hardware below, has stepped into the center stage of historical transformation.

For a long time, the operating system, as the gatekeeper of users' digital world, has controlled the access to all hardware resources. From CPU scheduling and memory allocation to the permissions of sensors such as cameras, microphones, and positioning systems, no application can access these underlying capabilities without the permission of the operating system.

It is also the gatekeeper of every bit of data flow - determining when data enters, how it is stored, whether it can leave, and who can read it. It can be said that the operating system in the AI era is not only an intermediary behind the hardware, focusing on resource scheduling, but also the core bridge that supports the operation of large models and guards the data boundary.

In fact, the key role played by the operating system has also raised security questions in the AI era: In today's world where intelligent terminals are everywhere and the average person owns three or more devices, how can we build a more secure and truly trustworthy operating system?

Especially in the past year, the operating system and its underlying components have been frequently exposed to high - intensity attacks. Whether it is the Linux toolchain being implanted with supply - chain backdoors or the large - scale blue - screen incidents of Windows caused by the collapse of kernel - level components, it indicates that security should become an underlying capability of the operating system.

The solution may lie in the system programming language.

If the operating system is a skyscraper, then the system programming language is the steel and cement that determines its stability and reliability. The traditional mainstream operating system kernels represented by Windows NT and Linux were all born in the 1980s and 1990s, and now face various structural limitations in the AI era.

On the one hand, most traditional system kernels are developed in the C language. Although it is highly efficient in performance, there are potential risks in memory security. Usually, security patches are applied after security vulnerabilities are discovered, and it is impossible to achieve native security to cope with the expanding attack surface brought by multi - modal interaction and complex user behaviors in the AI era.

On the other hand, traditional operating system kernels are generally bloated in function, with core code often reaching millions of lines. This makes it difficult for them to be efficiently adapted and trimmed in diverse terminal scenarios such as IoT and edge computing. This large kernel size has put the operating system into a structural adaptation bottleneck.

It can be said that these traditional system kernels, which were generally born in the era of general - purpose computing and mainly designed for the PC architecture, can no longer meet the requirements of "lightweight, high - security, and cross - platform", and thus cannot adapt to the current multi - terminal collaboration and heterogeneous computing environment in the AI era.

So, what kind of language can break through the bottlenecks of the era and meet the needs of users in the AI wave? vivo's answer is: Rust.

Building a new kernel with Rust language, vivo steps into the "deep - water area of self - developed operating systems"

Why Rust language?

As an emerging system - level programming language, Rust was born in 2006. At that time, a programmer at Mozilla encountered an elevator malfunction on his way home from work, which inspired him to create a new programming language to write concise, short, but fast - running code.

Before the birth of Rust, system - level programming was almost completely dominated by C/C++. Although they have high performance, they impose few restrictions on programmers, often leading to various security problems such as frequent memory - security vulnerabilities and unpredictable and difficult - to - debug bugs under multi - thread concurrency conditions.

The emergence of Rust is to solve the security problems exposed in the era dominated by C/C++ without sacrificing performance. For developers, it is a new - generation programming language that combines the performance of the C language with modern memory - security mechanisms.

First of all, it can solve the problems of memory security and concurrency security at the compilation stage.

Compared with programming in the C language, where developers need to manage memory manually and are prone to serious vulnerabilities such as null pointers, wild pointers, and buffer overflows, Rust can detect security vulnerabilities caused by improper memory use at the compilation stage through its ownership management mechanism and lifetime management.

Secondly, it can also ensure concurrency security. The concurrency model of the C language is weak and has a higher debugging cost, while Rust can ensure the security of data access between threads at the language level. For developers, they can safely write concurrent programs without worrying about underlying hidden dangers.

Finally, it is suitable for more important security scenarios and more diverse terminal devices.

The "zero - cost abstraction" and "no - GC runtime" features of Rust also allow it to be flexibly applied to more lightweight, smaller, and distributed diverse terminal devices - such as IoT nodes, edge - computing units, smart wearables, and even embedded chips, truly becoming a full - scenario system language "from the data center to the watch chip".

It can be said that Rust is becoming a new choice. As early as 2022, Mark Russinovich, the chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure, directly called on developers to abandon C and C++ and switch to Rust. A survey of developers conducted by Stack Overflow in 2023 showed that more than 80% of developers said they were willing to continue using Rust, far higher than that of C/C++ (less than 50%).

While foreign technology giants are calling on thousands of developers to follow, Chinese technology companies have also formed a queue for the Rust language.

The Blue River operating system kernel (hereinafter referred to as the Blue River kernel) recently announced to be open - sourced by vivo has three major characteristics: security, lightness, and universality. This unique kernel advantage enables the Blue River kernel to truly meet the three core requirements for operating systems in the AI era: high security, lightweight, and universality.

First is security. The Blue River kernel uses the Rust language to build a memory - secure operating environment. It implements the core basic modules of the kernel, the standard library, and system calls in Rust, ensuring memory security from the source. That is to say, the Blue River system has higher runtime stability and attack resistance by default.

Second is lightness and high performance. Thanks to the lightness of Rust, the Blue River kernel has extremely low requirements for hardware resources, with a minimum memory usage of only 13KB, which can meet the requirements of terminals such as wearable devices at a lower cost.

Finally is universality. This kernel with low hardware - resource requirements can support multiple chip architectures, such as RISC - V and ARM, thus meeting the business needs of developers on different platforms. At the same time, it also supports a standard library compatible with the POSIX interface, expanding support for the existing software and hardware ecosystem.

For users, the transformation at the system level can bring a perceptible leap in experience - fewer crashes, stronger privacy protection, and faster response speed, redefining the standards of the operating system; for developers, this kernel also significantly reduces the development threshold and maintenance cost, enabling them to write more secure, high - performance, maintainable, and easily deployable system - level code at a lower cost, accelerating the prosperous construction of the application ecosystem in the AI era.

When vivo builds the Blue River kernel with the Rust language and chooses to open - source it, it is not only creating a fully self - developed operating system but also responding to the challenge of "security and trustworthiness" of the operating system in the AI era in a new way. For more information, please visit the official website of the Blue River kernel: https://blueos.vivo.com/kernel.

With the power of open - source, create an innovative and prosperous "Blue River era"

Why does vivo want to self - develop an operating system?

For intelligent terminal manufacturers, building an operating system is undoubtedly an "innovation long - march" with no shortcuts. Tens of millions of lines of code, the deep coupling of software and hardware, and the long - term ecological construction all determine that self - developing an operating system often requires manufacturers to have strategic determination and resource investment to cross the cycle.

However, in the face of the emerging new scenarios and new requirements in the AI era, the traditional system - kernel architecture, due to its heavy historical burden and high module coupling, has difficulty in flexibly adapting to the evolving multi - form terminals. They are restricted in key dimensions such as lightweight, security, and intelligence.

vivo's self - development path of the operating system is to solve these core contradictions that affect the user experience.

In 2018, with the surging AI wave, the Blue River operating system was officially launched. In 2023, vivo's self - developed Blue River operating system with its system framework written in the Rust language was officially released. In 2024, the Blue River operating system took a further step and became the first operating system in the industry to be written entirely in the Rust language from the kernel to the system framework.

As Zhou Wei, the vice - president of vivo, thought about the operating system in the AI era: A truly future - oriented intelligent operating system must have three core capabilities - powerful AI empowerment, all - around security protection, and ensuring the smooth operation of the system.

Zhou Wei, Vice - President of vivo, Vice - President of OS Product, and Dean of vivo AI Global Research Institute

Now, with the emergence of the smarter, smoother, and more secure Blue River operating system and its installation on intelligent terminal devices, vivo, as a pioneer and backbone force in the development of the Rust language, has also announced the official open - sourcing of the Blue River kernel. It can be said that from self - development to open - source co - construction, vivo has found its own way to break through in the operating system in the AI era.

A more worthy question to answer is: Why does vivo choose to open - source the self - developed Blue River system kernel?

First of all, in the field of operating systems, where the underlying capabilities are highly coupled and the ecological value determines the upper limit, neither going it alone nor working in isolation will lead to long - term success. For leading manufacturers, leading ecological co - construction with self - development strength is an inevitable development choice.

Secondly, although Rust, as a relatively young system - level language, shows significant advantages in security, concurrency, and performance, its ecosystem in China is still in its infancy. To truly expand the influence of Rust, relying solely on technology is far from enough.

vivo chooses to open - source the Blue River kernel in order to build an ecological soil for the Blue River system by promoting more developers to understand and use Rust.

This is also why the Blue River operating system innovation competition held by vivo has continued to its third session this year. At the same time, by collaborating with the OpenAtom Foundation and cooperating closely with the industry and academia, vivo's choice to open - source the Blue River kernel is not only about the technical investment in the operating system but also about the cultivation of development talents.

So far, vivo's research and exploration of the Rust language can be on a par with top domestic and foreign academic universities. For example, the operating system research group of the Software Institute of the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University explored the Rust OS - related field many years ago and used the Rust programming language to promote the innovation of operating systems.

And vivo, by collaborating with the OpenAtom Open - Source Foundation, universities, and the industry, plans to continue to build the Blue River operating system innovation competition into the most influential Rust event in the industry. In the past, the results of the competition have achieved remarkable results in the translation between C, C++ and Rust, and more than 400 teams from over 90 top universities participated in the previous competition.

In fact, promoting the development of the Rust language through a series of forms such as technology competitions and campus activities is an inevitable decision made by vivo, as a leading mobile phone manufacturer, knowing its key role in the entire industrial chain.

Whether it is the cultivation of the open - source community, the construction of the developer ecosystem, or the collaboration of the industrial chain, the open - sourcing of the Blue River kernel is a key annotation on vivo's path to building a self - developed ecosystem: By providing an innovative and leading operating system kernel, to promote the development and prosperity of the domestic Rust - language basic software and ecosystem.

From self - development to open - source, this is not the end of vivo's innovation in operating systems, but the starting point for the co - prosperity of basic software and the industry in the "Blue River era".