Embodiments of the present disclosure may relate to a host controller that includes processing circuitry to identify an inter-integrated circuit (I2C) out-of-band interrupt (OBI) received on a general purpose input-output (GPIO) pin from an I2C device that is unable to generate an improved inter-integrated circuit (I3C) bus an I3C in-band interrupt (IBI). The processing circuitry may further generate, based on the I2C OBI, an I3C IBI that includes information related to the I2C OBI. The host controller may further include transmission circuitry to transmit the I3C IBI on an I3C bus. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.