Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, and Ferrous Systems GmbH, the leading provider of Rust consulting, tooling and training services, today announced a strategic collaboration to use Ferrocene, a quality-managed, safety-qualified Rust toolchain to build applications for Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. With this collaboration, Red Hat and Ferrous Systems aim to equip automakers, Tier 1 suppliers and automotive software engineering teams with a streamlined, reliable path to develop safety-critical applications.

As the automotive industry transitions to software-defined vehicles (SDVs), engineering teams increasingly seek memory-safe programming languages to replace legacy codebases. Rust is gaining interest across the automotive industry as OEMs and suppliers look to improve memory safety, software robustness and developer productivity while retaining the performance required for embedded and safety-related systems. However, deploying Rust in safety-critical electronic control units (ECUs) requires strict functional safety qualifications, rigorous toolchain verification and end-to-end traceability.

Red Hat and Ferrous Systems are addressing these requirements by enabling the integration of Ferrocene’s qualified Rust tooling with Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, bridging open source language innovation with enterprise-grade automotive functional safety standards.

Initial use cases include safety-related applications and mixed Rust and C/C++ environments, giving development teams a way to introduce Rust into existing automotive software architectures.

Aligning Rust with automotive functional safety

By integrating Ferrocene directly with Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, Red Hat and Ferrous Systems provide automotive software engineering teams with a streamlined path to develop and deploy memory-safe code. Key benefits of this joint solution include:

  • ISO 26262 functional safety qualification: Ferrocene provides a safety-qualified Rust toolchain certified under ISO 26262 up to ASIL D, alongside a certified subset of Rust’s core library for ISO 26262 ASIL B workloads.

  • Reduced qualification and integration overhead: Pre-aligning Ferrocene with Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System helps reduce cost, complexity and custom validation effort typically required by individual OEMs. As teams progress toward functional safety certification, they can continue using the same toolchain, with qualification materials available directly from Ferrous Systems.

  • Day 1 application development: Developers can write, test and validate Rust-based workloads on Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System today, establishing a certified application pipeline as platform certification completes.

  • Support for mixed C/C++ architectures: Enables gradual migration paths by allowing safety-critical Rust components to interoperate with existing C and C++ automotive software stacks.

  • Upstream-first open source commitment: Ferrocene is developed downstream of the community Rust project and contributes bug fixes and enhancements back upstream, ensuring both community ecosystems and production deployments benefit from joint innovation.

Availability

Ferrocene 26.05 currently supports Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System with a qualified aarch64-rhivos2-linux-gnu target, allowing software engineering teams to begin developing and testing applications immediately. Full general availability of the joint solution is planned for the second half of 2027, aligned with safety-certified Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System releases.

Detailed guidance for using Ferrocene with Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, including qualification requirements and target-specific usage instructions, is available in the publicly accessible Ferrocene Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System Manual.

Organizations interested in using Ferrocene with Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System can contact the Ferrous Systems sales team to discuss their project requirements and available support.

Supporting Quotes

Francis Chow, vice president and general manager, In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge, Red Hat

“Software-defined vehicles demand an evolution in how automotive applications are written, deployed, and certified. By working with Ferrous Systems to enable safety-qualified Rust on Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, we are providing automakers and Tier 1 suppliers with a hardened, memory-safe development foundation. This collaboration streamlines compliance, lowers integration barriers, and helps the automotive industry innovate faster without compromising safety.”

Florian Gilcher, managing director, Ferrous Systems GmbH

“Rust brings real advantages to automotive software, particularly memory safety, but safety-critical development requires more than the right language. You also need a qualified toolchain and the evidence that goes with it. Ferrocene provides that qualification work, reducing the effort customers would otherwise have to take on themselves. Our work with Red Hat helps make Rust a viable choice for safety-critical automotive software.”

Additional Resources

About Ferrocene

Ferrocene began at Ferrous Systems GmbH in 2019 as an initiative to bring Rust to safety- and mission-critical industries. It has since evolved into a quality-managed, TÜV SÜD-qualified, open source Rust toolchain. Ferrocene is qualified for safety-related development according to ISO 26262 (ASIL D), IEC 61508 (SIL 3) and IEC 62304 (Class C), and supports customer certification efforts toward SIL 4 and DO-178C (DAL C). A certified core subset is available for ISO 26262 (ASIL B) and IEC 61508 (SIL 2). Available under permissive MIT or Apache 2.0 licenses, Ferrocene supports a range of qualified targets, including Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. Regular requalification enables customers to benefit from the latest Rust features, while open-source qualification documentation provides transparency and flexibility when developing safety-critical systems. To learn more, visit www.ferrocene.dev.

About Ferrous Systems

Founded in 2018 in Berlin, Ferrous Systems is the leading provider of Rust-based consulting, tooling and training services, helping teams adopt and scale Rust with confidence. We also play a key role in advancing Rust for use in regulated industries as the original developer and leading service provider for Ferrocene, the first quality-managed, open source Rust toolchain qualified to meet the highest safety-critical standards. Ferrous Systems is an active contributor to the Rust project and the embedded Rust ecosystem, and collaborates closely with industry partners to deliver reliable, memory-safe software solutions worldwide. To learn more, visit ferrous-systems.com.

About Red Hat

Red Hat is the open hybrid cloud technology leader, delivering a trusted, consistent and comprehensive foundation for transformative IT innovation and AI applications. Its portfolio of cloud, developer, AI, Linux, automation and application platform technologies enables any application, anywhere—from the datacenter to the edge. As the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, Red Hat invests in open ecosystems and communities to solve tomorrow’s IT challenges. Collaborating with partners and customers, Red Hat helps them build, connect, automate, secure, and manage their IT environments, supported by consulting services and award-winning training and certification offerings.

Forward-Looking Statements

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