WebGPU is the future standard for graphics (GPU) and general purpose computing (GPGPU) in the web browser.

It is the successor of WebGL and based on open W3C standards agreed upon by all common web browser vendors. Still being in its early days, it is currently (mid-2024) available in Chrome, Firefox Nightly, Edge, Safari Technology Preview and Opera. WebGPU provides a uniform abstraction over different GPU/GPGPU interfaces such as DirectX, Vulkan and Metal while promising near-native performance with Javascript plumbing. Shader support is provided through WGSL.

Since nowadays many app developers decide to ship whole browsers anyway why not using WebGPU, WebWorkers and WebAssembly for cross-platform applications. The WebWorker API adds concurrency based on the message passing pattern.

Applications

Science & Engineering

• Fast Fourier Transform
• Statistical Physics
• Spice (Electrical Circuitry)
• Bioinformatics
• Matlab Clone

GPGPU

• Machine Learning
• Stream Processing
• Monte Carlo
• Cryptography

Media & Games

• Audio/Video Processing
• Tetris
• Flight Simulator
• Jump and Run
• Shooter

Education

• Virtual Tourism
• E-Schooling
• Historical Settings
• Climate Change
• ISA Simulator

Learning Sources

WebAssembly

• https://web.dev/articles/webassembly-performance-patterns-for-web-apps
• https://emscripten.org/docs/api_reference/index.html
• https://emscripten.org/docs/optimizing/Optimizing-Code.html

WebGPU

• https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/
• https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki
• https://caniuse.com/?search=webgpu
• https://webgpu.github.io/webgpu-samples/
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/GPUDevice

WebWorker

• https://web.dev/articles/workers-basics
• https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/workers.html
• https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Using_web_workers

WGSL

• https://google.github.io/tour-of-wgsl/
• https://www.w3.org/TR/WGSL/
• https://github.com/paulgb/wgsl-cheat-sheet
• https://webgpufundamentals.org/webgpu/lessons/webgpu-wgsl-function-reference.html
• https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/wgsl/
• https://github.com/alphastrata/shadplay