WebNN-Native Build and Run

WebNN-native is a native implementation of the Web Neural Network API.

It provides several building blocks:

WebNN C/C++ headers that applications and other building blocks use.
- The webnn.h that is an one-to-one mapping with the WebNN IDL.
- A C++ wrapper for the webnn.h
Backend implementations that use platforms’ ML APIs:
- DirectML on Windows 10
- OpenVINO on Windows 10 and Linux
- oneDNN on Windows 10 and Linux
- XNNPACK on Windows 10 and Linux
- Other backends are to be added

WebNN-native uses the code of other open source projects:

The code generator and infrastructure code of Dawn project.
The DirectMLX and device wrapper of DirectML project.
The XNNPACK

Build and Run

Install `depot_tools`

WebNN-native uses the Chromium build system and dependency management so you need to install depot_tools and add it to the PATH.

Notes:

On Windows, you’ll need to set the environment variable DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN=0. This tells depot_tools to use your locally installed version of Visual Studio (by default, depot_tools will try to download a Google-internal version).

Get the code

Get the source code as follows:

# Clone the repo as "webnn-native"
> git clone https://github.com/webmachinelearning/webnn-native.git webnn-native && cd webnn-native

# Bootstrap the gclient configuration
> cp scripts/standalone.gclient .gclient

# Fetch external dependencies and toolchains with gclient
> gclient sync

Setting up the build

Generate build files using gn args out/Debug or gn args out/Release.

A text editor will appear asking build options, the most common option is is_debug=true/false; otherwise gn args out/Release --list shows all the possible options.

To build with DirectML backend, set build option webnn_enable_dml=true.

To build with OpenVINO backend, set build option webnn_enable_openvino=true.

To build with oneDNN backend, set build option webnn_enable_onednn=true.

To build with XNNPACK backend, set build option webnn_enable_xnnpack=true.

Build

Then use ninja -C out/Release or ninja -C out/Debug to build WebNN-native.

Notes

To build with XNNPACK backend, please build XNNPACK first, e.g. by XNNPACK/scripts/build-local.sh.

Run tests

Run unit tests, for example ./out/Release/webnn_unittests.

Run end2end tests, for example ./out/Release/webnn_end2end_tests.