$24,000 AI experiment ports TypeScript compiler to Rust
With some extra tokens to burn, developer and popular YouTuber Theo Browne used AI agents to port Microsoft's TypeScript compiler to Rust, just to see if it could be done.
Not only did he produce a working implementation, but the resulting code could also pave the way for more memory-efficient environments for AI agents.
Browne claims his Rust port runs twice as fast as Microsoft's official Go-based TypeScript rewrite (v7) released earlier this year and 12.5 times as fast as the previous version of TypeScript (v6) – not bad work considering he says he hasn’t even inspected the code.
TS_Rust is a project that would have been impractical even earlier this year, Browne noted in a video presentation.
But models are developing so quickly that heretofore unimaginable tasks are now possible.
The resulting Rust-based TypeScript also opens the possibility of using Google’s V8 engine as a less-memory-intensive alternative for running agentic workloads written in TypeScript, an approach that would be unfeasible using Microsoft’s Go implementation of TypeScript, Browne argued.
A job that shouldn’t be possible Browne’s original idea was to burn his excess tokens by tackling a project so large that it couldn’t possibly be finished, just to see how far the latest models could get.
The agentic rewrite involved porting the TypeScript compiler, type checker, and language server, which provides features such as error checking and code completion in editors.
He burned more than $400,000 worth of API-equivalent tokens using OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-6 Astra, which reached roughly 84 percent compatibility before the models struggled to complete the remaining work.
When Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 last month, he revisited the idea.
To his surprise, the new model produced a working implementation, consuming about $24,000 worth of API-equivalent tokens through Browne's Claude subscriptions.
The resulting implementation passed the TypeScript conformance tests with nearly 100 percent accuracy.
Perhaps this unexpected success was due to Claude 5.5 being a more muscular model, Browne reasoned.
But Claude was also clever enough to change its strategy to get a head start.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.theregister.com — the content belongs to The Register.
