The Khronos Group has launched the Slang Initiative to advance the open-source Slang shading language and compiler. Slang provides real-time graphics developers with features such as modular code development and portable deployment. The initiative enables industrywide collaboration and is hosted on GitHub. Slang aims to simplify shader code management and support multiple platforms.
The Khronos Group, a consortium of industry leaders focused on interoperability standards, has launched the Shading-LANGage (Slang) Initiative. This initiative will oversee and advance the open-source Slang shading language and compiler, drawing on 15 years of research, development, and deployment experience by Nvidia. It has been adopted for production projects across the industry. Slang, says Khronos, provides developers of real-time graphics with features such as modular code development, portable deployment to multiple target APIs, and neural computation in graphics shaders.
Khronos’ hosting of Slang under its multi-company governance is hoped to establish an industrywide collaboration to drive the continued evolution of the shading compiler.
Khronos has implemented a governance model to keep Slang open and adaptable to developer needs. The Slang open-source project, hosted on GitHub and licensed under Apache 2.0, follows established technical development practices, while promoting a self-governing contributor community. Contributors can participate in language design, improve the codebase, address bugs, and gain elevated roles within the project, regardless of Khronos membership.
A working group of Khronos members supports the project with financial, logistical, and marketing resources, providing strategic guidance, while allowing engineering efforts to remain flexible. Together, these elements form the Slang Initiative.
The project aims to create a detailed language specification alongside the compiler, offering developers clarity, architectural consistency, and backward compatibility. The Slang Working Group will periodically ratify this specification, ensuring patent license protection under the Khronos Intellectual Property Framework.
Slang is a programming language made for graphics developers working with shader code. It helps developers by making it easier to create and manage shader code and shorter compilation times. One of the challenges developers face is rewriting shader code for different platforms. Slang addresses this by directly supporting various platforms through its compiler. This means code written in Slang can be used on different platforms like Vulkan, Direct3D, OpenGL, WebGPU, and Apple platforms without needing to be rewritten. For instance, Autodesk, a company known for its design software, uses Slang in its Aurora path-tracing renderer to maintain a single codebase for ray tracing. Slang also allows developers to use their existing HLSL and GLSL shader code with its compiler. This means developers can gradually switch to Slang and take advantage of its features.
Valve, a video game company, successfully used Slang to compile its entire Source 2 HLSL codebase with minimal changes.