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Google is (not) bringing Fuchsia OS to Android devices

Google is working on “microfuchsia,” a stripped down version of the company’s Fuchsia operating system that runs on the Google Nest Hub.

Rather, it’s built on Zircon, which Google says is “composed of a kernel and a small set of userspace services, drivers, and libraries necessary for core system functions such as booting.” Zircon’s “microkernel-like architecture” allows Fuchsia to “reduce the amount of trusted code running in the system” to just a few core functions, which can lead to improved security and stability due to a reduction in the amount of highly privileged code compared to typical “monolithic” kernels. While the alleged goal to eventually replace Android and Chrome OS with Fuchsia still seems incredibly far off (if not canceled altogether), Google did successfully launch the operating system onto smart home devices, starting with the first-generation Nest Hub in 2021. In addition, since late April of this year, Google has been working on a new project called “microfuchsia” that aims to make Fuchsia bootable on existing devices via virtualization.

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