WGSL: packed 4x8 integer dot product (DP4)

Category: Graphics
Type: Chromium catches up
Status: Enabled by default (Chrome 123)
Intent stage: None

Breaking change: No
Enterprise impact: None
Spec maturity: Unknown status
Web Platform Tests: Yes

WPT details: WebGPU/WGSL have a conformance test suite (https://github.com/gpuweb/cts) that is regularly pulled into Chromium and part of the testing of Dawn/Tint in Chromium. Note that tests are still being written, but the feature will not be launched until it is fully tested.

Summary

Functionality added to the WebGPU/WGSL spec after its first shipment in a browser. Adds support new WGSL builtins to work with 4 8-bit numbers packed in a u32. The new dot product functionality is especially useful for executing machine learning models that work on 8-bit weights.

Standards & signals

Specification: https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/wgsl/#:~:text=packed_4x8_integer_dot_product
Firefox: No signal
Safari: Closed Without a Position — Note that this is a blanket approval from Safari for addition to the v1 WebGPU/WGSL spec.
Web developers: Positive — Multiple ML frameworks are looking to use this (ONNX runtime, TF.js, etc)
Tracking bug: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/tint/issues/detail?id=1497

Ecosystem

Web Platform Tests: https://wpt.fyi/results/?q=webgpu%2FWGSL
Chrome Platform Showcase: https://chrome-platform-showcase.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
GenDN reference: https://gendn.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
chrome.dev demos search: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Achrome.dev+WGSL%3A%20packed%204x8%20integer%20dot%20product%20(DP4)
MDN Web Docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=WGSL%3A%20packed%204x8%20integer%20dot%20product%20(DP4)
Baseline status: https://webstatus.dev/?q=WGSL%3A%20packed%204x8%20integer%20dot%20product%20(DP4)

View on chromestatus.com