Chrome’s new WebGPU tech promises new era for browser games

Google is rolling out the first iteration of WebGPU which will allow the Chrome browser to use a computer’s graphics card to enhance web-based video games and their graphical fidelity.

The new API (Application Programming Interface) is the result of a six-year development cycle by the GPU for the Web Community Group(opens in new tab) with contributions from several tech giants like Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft.

As a successor to the current WebGL model, WebGPU is said to lessen the “JavaScript workload” for its browser as well as triple the performance of “machine learning model inferences.” The end goal is to have browser games sporting “highly-detailed scenes with many different objects” as “many modern rendering techniques” will be now possible. Pre-existing titles like those found on Javascript 3D libraries like Babylon.js will see an improvement too.

Outside of gaming, the API can be used by productivity apps to “offload computations to the GPU, Techradar reports.

Teleconferencing platforms like Google Meet can utilize the improved machine learning to run more efficiently, according to the WebGPU Explainer(opens in new tab).

WebGPU is currently available as a default setting on the beta version of Chrome 113 (opens in a new tab), which is available for download on Windows, ChromeOS, and macOS. However, at least for the first two systems, you'll have to meet a few system requirements. Windows devices must support Direct3D 12 while ChromeOS devices must have the Vulkan API enabled. If you prefer to wait for a stable launch instead, Chrome 113 will officially launch(opens in a new tab) with WebGPU on April 26.