Khronos royalty-free open standards for 3D graphics, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Parallel Computing, Machine Learning, and Vision Processing

SIGGRAPH 2026 in Los Angeles delivered a clear snapshot of the future of graphics and spatial computing—and Khronos was at the center of it. The organization presented more than 20 sessions spanning hands-on courses and in-depth Birds of a Feather (BOF) discussions on neural graphics, XR, 3D assets, rendering, and real-time shading. Wednesday, July 22 served as the dedicated Khronos Developer Day, with status updates from the Vulkan, glTF, WebGL/WebGPU, OpenXR, ANARI, and Slang Working Groups, plus the Machine Learning Council, followed by a networking reception for members and guests. Click through for a full recap of activities. 

3D Formats member, Adam Morris (Bentley/Cesium) sits down with host Muthu Kumar to break down how 3D Gaussian Splatting works, why it outperforms traditional 3D models in complex visual inspection tasks, and how ‪Khronos is standardizing the technology via a new glTF extension.

The release candidate of PoCL 7.2 is now available for testing of this Portable Computing Language implementation of OpenCL that allows for CPU-based execution or via alternative LLVM back-ends allows for OpenCL on Level Zero, NVIDIA GPUs, and even remote devices/hardware.

Highlights of SDK 1.4.357:

• Major KosmicKrisp performance gains (up to ~2.35× faster) + full Vulkan 1.4 exposure on Apple platforms
• 13 new extensions
• Scoped GPU-AV + new GPU Dump tool in the Validation Layers
• Available now for Linux, Windows & macOS

ROCm has compiled GPU code ahead of time (AOT), once per target architecture, since its first release. CPU software shifted to runtime just-in-time (JIT) compilation in the 1990s — Java HotSpot, V8, LuaJIT, .NET RyuJIT, PyPy — once the matrix of target × workload × deployment became too large to enumerate at build time. With its adoption of SPIR-V, ROCm now brings the compile-once, specialize-on-device model to AMD GPUs. 

This post covers what SPIR-V is, why AMD adopted it, the compilation model and its trade-offs, and a reproducible single-kernel HIP example with measurements on MI350X (CDNA4), spot-checked on RX 9070 XT (RDNA4). A FAQ and status section at the end cover common questions and what is shipping, in flight, and not yet solved.

The latest release of Leadwerks 5.1 expands its support for Khronos technologies with new capabilities that improve graphics quality and asset interoperability.

Leadwerks now supports the MSFT_texture_dds glTF extension, enabling seamless import and export of models and scenes using DDS compressed textures while maintaining PNG fallbacks for broader compatibility. The update also adds the Khronos PBR Neutral Tone Mapper as a world rendering option, giving developers a standardized approach to accurate, natural-looking color reproduction across physically based rendering (PBR) workflows.

The release demonstrates how Khronos standards continue to help developers build high-performance graphics applications with consistent visual quality and efficient asset pipelines.

Read the full Leadwerks 5.1 announcement to learn more about the new features and improvements.