Rust for AI Engineers

Python is fast to write but slow to run. If you've ever watched an AI agent crawl through a vector search, waited on a GIL-locked inference loop, or debugged a memory spike in a LangChain pipeline, this book is for you.

Rust for AI Engineers teaches you to build the performance-critical layers of AI systems in Rust - the parts where Python runs out of road. You'll learn Rust through the lens of real AI engineering problems: agent memory, tool servers, vector search, LLM API clients, and production observability.

What you'll build:
- A working memory system for AI agents - episodic, semantic, and working memory in safe, concurrent Rust
- A MCP-compatible tool server with a typed registry and async dispatcher
- A fast vector search engine from scratch, with HNSW indexing and Qdrant integration
- A streaming LLM API client with retry logic and rate limiting - no Python tax
- PromptWarden, a zero-dependency prompt injection detection library
- SentinelAI, a complete on-call engineering agent that monitors alerts, reasons about actions, and pages humans

Every code example compiles. Every crate is real and published. No toy projects.

Who this book is for: Backend engineers tired of Python's performance ceilings, AI engineers who want to ship production-grade components, and Rust developers ready to apply the language to the fastest-growing engineering domain.

Ashish Sharda is an engineering executive with 15+ years at Apple, Yahoo, Visa, and Salesforce. He teaches Rust on LinkedIn Learning and builds open-source AI tooling including PromptWarden, rapid-rs, and Vajra.