Google has announced that it will support the graphic API webgpu and the webgpu shading language (wgsl) by default in Chrome 113, which will be released on May 2. With webgpu, Google will provide a software interface similar to Vulkan, Metal, and Direct3D 12 for GPU operations such as rendering and calculations. Additionally, webgpu enables the use of shaders for programming the GPU side. However, the implementation of WebGPU will only be available initially on Chromeos, MacOS, and Windows, with support for Linux and Android to be added later.
Since April 2020, Firefox and Safari have been testing the experimental support of WebGPU. Firefox and Safari have not yet reported any default plans to turn on the WebGPU, but the implementation of Webgpu libraries like Dawn (C ++) and Wgpu (Rust) are available separately. These libraries can be integrated with applications to provide WebGPU support. However, there is ongoing work to add support for WebGPU to popular JavaScript libraries that use WebGL. For Example, both full and partial support for Webgpu has already been provided by Babylon.js, Three.js, Playcanvas, and Tensorflow.js respectively.
Webgpu differs conceptually from Webgl, with Webgpu being a universal layer that uses low-level primitives found in Vulkan, Metal, and Direct3D. Webgpu enables low-level control of the organization, processing, and transfer of commands to the GPU, such as control of tied resources, memory, buffers, textures, objects, and compiled graphic shaders. This approach improves the performance of graphic applications by reducing overhead costs and enhancing GPU efficiency.
Webgpu enables the creation of complex 3D projects for web applications that work no worse than separate programs that use Vulkan, Metal, or Direct3D API. Unlike those APIs, Webgpu is not tied to specific platforms, and it provides additional opportunities when porting native graphic programs that can work with web technologies through compilation in Webassembly. Webgpu also covers other possibilities associated with the removal of calculations to the side of the GPU and the execution of shaders.