WebGPU

WebGPU is the working name for a potential web standard and JavaScript API for accelerated graphics and compute, aiming to provide "modern 3D graphics and computation capabilities". It is developed by the W3C GPU for the Web Community Group with engineers from Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, and others.

Unlike WebGL, WebGPU is not a direct port of any existing native API. It is based on APIs provided by Vulkan, Metal, and Direct3D 12 and is intended to provide high performance across mobile and desktop platforms. Mobile platforms will be limited in creation of WebGPUDevice objects that will require modern graphics APIs (mentioned above).

The first conceptual prototype called NXT was showcased in early 2017 by the Chromium team. The Google Chrome Development Team has named it as a "successor" to the WebGL/2 JavaScript APIs. On April 6, 2023, Google announced that the Chromium and Google Chrome browsers will ship with WebGPU support enabled on ChromeOS devices with Vulkan support, macOS, and Windows devices with Direct3D 12 starting with Chromium/Chrome 113. WebGPU support for other platforms including Linux and Android will be added at a later date.