Chris Lattner
Creator of LLVM, Clang and the Swift programming language
- Works listed
- 3
- Compiler infrastructure, Programming language
- Honours
- 1
- Most recent 2012
- Profile views
- 1
- 0 followers
Chris Lattner is an American software engineer who created LLVM, a compiler infrastructure used by Apple, Google and many languages, and led the creation of Apple’s Swift programming language. He co-founded Modular, which developed the Mojo language for AI.
Biography
LLVM
Lattner studied computer science at the University of Portland and began LLVM in 2000 as a graduate student at the University of Illinois with Vikram Adve. LLVM provides reusable compiler components and became the foundation of many languages, including Rust and Swift.
Apple and Clang
Joining Apple in 2005, he led the development of Clang, a C, C++ and Objective-C compiler built on LLVM, which replaced GCC in Apple’s tools.
Swift
In 2010 he secretly began designing Swift, announced by Apple in 2014 as a modern replacement for Objective-C. It became the main language for iPhone and Mac apps.
After Apple
He led Tesla’s Autopilot software team briefly in 2017, worked on TensorFlow at Google and at SiFive, and in 2022 co-founded Modular, which created the Mojo language.
Timeline
-
2000
Begins LLVM at Illinois
-
2005
Joins Apple
-
2007
Clang project announced
-
2010
Starts designing Swift
-
2012
ACM Software System Award
-
2014
Swift announced
-
2017
Leaves Apple
-
2022
Co-founds Modular
Notable works
-
2003
LLVM Compiler infrastructure
-
2014
Swift Programming language
-
2023
Mojo Programming language
Awards and honours
-
ACM Software System Award
2012
Did you know?
-
1
He designed Swift in his evenings and weekends at first.
-
2
LLVM originally stood for “Low Level Virtual Machine”.
-
3
Swift was made open source in 2015.
Frequently asked
Who is Chris Lattner?
Chris Lattner is an American software engineer who created LLVM, a compiler infrastructure used by Apple, Google and many languages, and led the creation of Apple’s Swift programming language. He co-founded Modular, which developed the Mojo language for AI.
Where is Chris Lattner from?
Chris Lattner was born in United States.
What is Chris Lattner known for?
Chris Lattner is best known for LLVM compiler infrastructure; Clang; Swift; Mojo and Modular.
What awards has Chris Lattner received?
Notable honours include ACM Software System Award (2012).
References
- Chris Lattner — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Official website. nondot.org. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Chris Lattner (Q2964778) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Chris Lattner”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more
External links
About this profile
- Researched by the TrackFame editorial team; reviewed by Sanjay Sokal under our editorial policy
- First published 4 November 2026
- Last updated
Cite this page
“Chris Lattner.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/chris-lattner
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