diff --git a/src/compiler/execution.jl b/src/compiler/execution.jl
index ad761bea..1b264a71 100644
--- a/src/compiler/execution.jl
+++ b/src/compiler/execution.jl
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ export @opencl, clfunction
 ## high-level @opencl interface
 
 const MACRO_KWARGS = [:launch]
-const COMPILER_KWARGS = [:kernel, :name, :always_inline, :extensions]
+const COMPILER_KWARGS = [:kernel, :name, :always_inline, :extensions, :backend]
 const LAUNCH_KWARGS = [:global_size, :local_size, :queue]
 
 macro opencl(ex...)
diff --git a/test/Project.toml b/test/Project.toml
index 1efff760..1125cf4d 100644
--- a/test/Project.toml
+++ b/test/Project.toml
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ Adapt = "79e6a3ab-5dfb-504d-930d-738a2a938a0e"
 Dates = "ade2ca70-3891-5945-98fb-dc099432e06a"
 Distributed = "8ba89e20-285c-5b6f-9357-94700520ee1b"
 GPUArrays = "0c68f7d7-f131-5f86-a1c3-88cf8149b2d7"
+GPUCompiler = "61eb1bfa-7361-4325-ad38-22787b887f55"
 IOCapture = "b5f81e59-6552-4d32-b1f0-c071b021bf89"
 InteractiveUtils = "b77e0a4c-d291-57a0-90e8-8db25a27a240"
 JLD2 = "033835bb-8acc-5ee8-8aae-3f567f8a3819"
diff --git a/test/execution.jl b/test/execution.jl
index db663c04..b0d4eb97 100644
--- a/test/execution.jl
+++ b/test/execution.jl
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+using GPUCompiler: isavailable, SPIRV_LLVM_Translator_jll
+
 @testset "execution" begin
 
 @testset "@opencl" begin
@@ -133,4 +135,22 @@ end
     end
 end
 
+@testset "backends" begin
+    llvm_backend_llvm = sprint() do io
+        OpenCL.code_llvm(io, () -> nothing, (); dump_module = true, backend = :llvm)
+    end
+    if Int === Int64
+        @test occursin("target triple = \"spirv64-unknown-unknown-unknown\"", llvm_backend_llvm)
+    end
+
+    if isavailable(SPIRV_LLVM_Translator_jll)
+        llvm_backend_khronos = sprint() do io
+            OpenCL.code_llvm(io, () -> nothing, (); dump_module = true, backend = :khronos)
+        end
+        if Int === Int64
+            @test occursin("target triple = \"spir64-unknown-unknown\"", llvm_backend_khronos)
+        end
+    end
+end
+
 end