Mozilla is developing a next-generation Web engine, dubbed Project Quantum.

For the uninitiated, a Web engine basically runs all the content you receive as you surf the Web. Most browsers today are still built for a single-core world, where CPUs could only process commands in a single stream and do just one thing at a time. But modern phones, tablets, and laptops have more sophisticated processors — with two, four, or even more cores. Mozilla plans to tap into the full processing power of these modern devices.

“Quantum is all about making extensive use of parallelism and fully exploiting modern hardware,” Mozilla Head of Platform Engineering David Bryant wrote in a blog post. “The resulting engine will power a fast and smooth user experience on both mobile and desktop operating systems — creating a ‘quantum leap’ in performance.”

What can you expect? If all goes according to plan, Bryant said the performance improvements will be so noticeable that “your entire web experience will feel different.”

“Pages will load faster, and scrolling will be silky smooth,” he wrote. “Animations and interactive apps will respond instantly, and be able to handle more intensive content while holding consistent frame rates. And the content most important to you will automatically get the highest priority, focusing processing power where you need it the most.”

The browser maker aims to “start delivering major improvements to users” by the end of next year, Bryant said. A first version of the new engine will ship on Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. In the more distant future, Mozilla hopes to offer the new engine for iOS today.

From a technical perspective, Quantum has a number of components, including several adopted from Servo, an independent, community-based Web engine sponsored by Mozilla.

“The high-level approach is to rethink many fundamental aspects of how a browser engine works,” Bryant explained. “We’ll be re-engineering foundational building blocks, like how we apply CSS styles, how we execute DOM operations, and how we render graphics to your screen.”