Axis Communications AV1 encoding debuts via new ARTPEC-9 surveillance chip

The adoption of AV1 encoding by a major hardware provider like Axis Communications signals a shift toward more efficient high-resolution video transport in security and monitoring environments. By reducing bandwidth requirements by 20%, the ARTPEC-9 chip allows for higher density camera deployments without proportional increases in network infrastructure costs. This move aligns with the broader streaming industry's transition to royalty-free codecs that support better quality at lower bitrates. As physical security and network audio converge into unified IP platforms, the integration of signed video authentication addresses growing concerns regarding deepfakes and digital evidence integrity. Watch for whether competitors accelerate their own AV1 hardware roadmaps to match these efficiency gains.

Axis Communications has been steadily building its position as a leader in network video hardware, and the ARTPEC-9 chip represents the latest step in that trajectory. The company's previous ARTPEC-8 generation, introduced in 2023, brought H.265 encoding and deep learning processing to its camera lineup. With ARTPEC-9, Axis is now among the first major surveillance hardware vendors to ship AV1 encoding in production silicon, a move that places it ahead of competitors like Hanwha Vision and Hikvision in codec adoption. Axis Communications has historically developed its own application-specific integrated circuits to differentiate its cameras from commodity hardware, a strategy that gives the company tight control over encoding pipelines and analytics performance.

The broader codec landscape in professional video is shifting toward royalty-free standards, driven by the Alliance for Open Media, which counts Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix among its members. AV1 has gained traction in streaming platforms and is now moving into adjacent verticals including surveillance and broadcast contribution. The security industry's interest in AV1 aligns with growing demand for higher-resolution cameras (4K and beyond) deployed at scale, where bandwidth costs become a significant operational expense. Nokia and AWS have been working on autonomous network architectures that could benefit from reduced video bandwidth demands in edge deployments, suggesting that telecom infrastructure players are also preparing for increased video traffic at the network edge. For Axis, the combination of AV1 efficiency and signed video authentication positions ARTPEC-9 as a response to both cost pressures and integrity concerns in legal and insurance contexts.

On the technical side, AV1 typically delivers 20 to 30 percent bitrate savings over H.265 at equivalent quality, according to independent benchmarks from the Alliance for Open Media and academic studies. Axis's claimed 20 percent improvement over its previous generation is consistent with those figures when moving from H.265 to AV1 at comparable quality levels. The inclusion of signed video authentication on-chip addresses a gap that has become more urgent as generative AI tools make video manipulation trivial. Ericsson launched its AI in RAN commercial software subscription in June 2026, claiming up to 20 percent higher downlink throughput across more than 15 live deployments, illustrating how the broader telecom ecosystem is also pursuing efficiency gains through software-defined approaches. For surveillance operators managing thousands of cameras, the combination of lower bitrate requirements and hardware-level provenance verification could reduce both storage costs and evidentiary challenges in regulated environments. Other hardware developers are also prioritizing to support next-generation high-resolution workflows.