FWIW, fontification of xdisp.c under tree-sitter is under a
second versus 17s for jit-lock (on my 10yo Thinkpad).

Install rust backend:
git clone https://github.com/commercial-emacs/tree-sitter.git
make -C tree-sitter install
pkg-config --exact-version=0.6.3alpha tree-sitter || echo not found

Then build emacs:
./autogen.sh
LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/.local/lib" CFLAGS="-g3 -O2 -I$HOME/.local/include/" ./configure --prefix=$HOME/.local --with-tree-sitter
make -j4 bootstrap
ldd src/emacs | grep -q tree-sitter || echo not found
make test/src/tree-sitter-tests.log
src/emacs -Q --eval '(custom-set-variables (quote (font-lock-support-mode (quote tree-sitter-lock-mode))) (quote (font-lock-maximum-size nil)) (quote (package-archives (quote (("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))))))' --eval '(package-refresh-contents)' --eval '(package-install (cadr (assq (quote tree-sitter-langs) package-archive-contents)))' --visit src/xdisp.c