Video Compression Becomes a Strategic Imperative for Sustainable Digital Infrastructure — MC-IF — October 7, 2026

By Staff Reports — October 7th, 2026

Q&A with VITEC's Eric Deniau and Qualcomm's Aytac Biber

Video has become one of the largest consumers of network bandwidth and digital infrastructure resources, and demand continues to accelerate as artificial intelligence, immersive applications and enterprise collaboration generate unprecedented volumes of visual content. That growth is forcing technology leaders to look beyond traditional measures of video quality and performance toward broader questions of operational efficiency, infrastructure scalability and long-term energy consumption.

In this executive Q&A, Eric Deniau, Senior Vice President of Research & Development at VITEC, and Aytac Biber, Director of Product Management at Qualcomm and a board member of the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF), discuss why next-generation video compression is becoming a strategic business consideration. They examine how more efficient codecs can reduce bandwidth requirements, lower operating costs and improve sustainability without compromising the quality of the viewing experience.

The discussion also explores why energy efficiency is emerging as a procurement criterion, why lifecycle optimization matters more than ever, and how organizations should evaluate future investments in video infrastructure as AI, data center expansion and increasingly sophisticated digital experiences continue to reshape the economics of video delivery. Together, the conversation argues that sustainable video growth will depend not on any single technology, but on an end-to-end strategy that combines advanced compression, efficient hardware and holistic infrastructure optimization.

Here is what they had to say: 

Full Vidcast Interview w/ Eric Deniau, Senior Vice President of Research & Development at VITEC, and Aytac Biber, Director of Product Management at Qualcomm

Q: Video has become the largest source of traffic across modern digital networks. Why has video efficiency become a strategic business issue rather than simply a networking challenge?

Biber: Video has become central to nearly every aspect of digital life. It supports communication, entertainment, education, healthcare and enterprise collaboration, and demand continues to grow. The challenge is not reducing video usage because that simply is not realistic. Instead, the industry must find ways to deliver the same or better quality experiences while transporting fewer bits across the network. That improves operational efficiency while reducing energy consumption throughout the video ecosystem.

Deniau: We have reached a point where video touches virtually every market. Higher resolutions, lower latency requirements and new use cases all increase the amount of data that organizations must process. The question is no longer whether video will continue growing. The question is how we make that growth sustainable over the long term. Video compression affects every stage of the delivery chain, making it one of the most practical opportunities for improving overall efficiency.

Q: Sustainability is often viewed as an environmental initiative. Why is it increasingly becoming a business and financial priority?

Biber: Better compression directly reduces the amount of information that must travel across networks. If you can reduce the data required to deliver the same viewing experience by 30 to 40 percent, you reduce infrastructure requirements and operating costs. That benefits streaming companies, telecommunications providers and enterprise IT organizations. Sustainability becomes a byproduct of improving operational efficiency.

Deniau: Energy efficiency is increasingly becoming part of total cost of ownership discussions. Organizations are looking beyond acquisition costs to understand the operational costs associated with running digital infrastructure over many years. Energy consumption has become an increasingly important procurement consideration because it affects both operating expenses and long-term scalability.

Our own assessments indicate that the majority of environmental impact comes during product use. Once products begin encoding, transporting and displaying video, they consume energy continuously throughout their operational life. That means improving operational efficiency often has a much greater impact than focusing exclusively on manufacturing processes.

That philosophy is reflected in VITEC's GreenPEG initiative, which approaches sustainability as a company-wide engineering and operational discipline rather than a standalone environmental program. It encompasses product design, manufacturing practices, supply chain decisions, logistics and partner selection, while also establishing design principles that emphasize energy efficiency throughout the operational life of every product. The objective is to reduce environmental impact without compromising performance, reliability or the quality of the video experience delivered to customers.

Ultimately, the greatest opportunity lies in optimizing the entire lifecycle of video technologies. That means improving how video is encoded, transported, decoded and displayed, while also reducing the energy consumed by the hardware performing those functions. Because codec efficiency influences every stage of that process, we see next-generation technologies such as VVC as one of the most practical tools available for making continued video growth more sustainable.

Biber: That end-to-end view is essential. Compression is only one component of a much larger system that includes production, transport, storage, decoding and playback. Improving one area while ignoring the others limits the overall benefit.

Q: What role does next-generation compression technology such as Versatile Video Coding play in addressing these challenges?

Biber: VVC represents a significant improvement over previous codec generations because it can deliver the same viewing experience using substantially fewer bits. That translates into lower bandwidth requirements, lower infrastructure costs and lower energy consumption. Moving from one codec generation to another is never simple because organizations must consider installed devices, software readiness and hardware support, but the operational benefits continue strengthening the business case.

Deniau: Codec innovation affects the entire video delivery chain. Lower bandwidth requirements reduce pressure on networks, storage systems and processing resources. That creates opportunities to improve scalability while simultaneously reducing operational costs.

Q: Artificial intelligence is dramatically increasing both data center demand and the amount of video being created. How does AI change this discussion?

Biber: AI introduces two important trends. First, AI infrastructure itself requires enormous computing resources and energy. Second, AI is generating more video content than ever before. Those two developments reinforce one another by increasing both the production and consumption of video. Improving compression efficiency becomes even more important because it addresses one of the industry's largest controllable variables.

Deniau: AI is also enabling new applications such as immersive experiences and automatically generated video. Those innovations create tremendous opportunities, but they also increase infrastructure demands. Organizations need technologies that allow them to support that growth without continuously expanding bandwidth and energy requirements.

Q: How is the market responding to sustainability initiatives such as GreenPEG?

Deniau: We are seeing several different drivers. Regulatory requirements continue expanding, but we are also seeing sustainability become a competitive differentiator. Customers increasingly evaluate energy efficiency alongside performance because they understand its impact on operating costs and long-term infrastructure planning. Innovation today must demonstrate both technical performance and operational efficiency.

Q: Hardware acceleration has become an important part of the discussion surrounding advanced codecs. Why?

Deniau: Compression algorithms deliver significant improvements, but hardware implementation determines how efficiently those algorithms operate in practice. Efficient hardware reduces processing requirements and energy consumption throughout the life of the product. That is why we continue investing heavily in hardware optimization alongside codec development.

Biber: There are situations where software implementations make sense during technology transitions, particularly to accelerate adoption. Over time, however, dedicated hardware provides the greatest efficiency gains for production deployments.

Q: What should enterprise technology leaders measure as they evaluate future video infrastructure investments?

Biber: Organizations should adopt measurement-driven decision making. The objective should be maintaining the same quality of experience while reducing bandwidth requirements, energy consumption and carbon impact. Those metrics together provide a much more complete picture than compression performance alone.

Deniau: Leaders should also evaluate the entire video lifecycle rather than individual technologies in isolation. Encoding, transport, hardware, decoding, display technologies and lifecycle management all contribute to the overall efficiency of the system.

Q: Looking ahead, what do you believe will define success for the video industry over the next several years?

Deniau: Video will continue growing regardless of market conditions. Success will depend on whether the industry can support that growth sustainably. Next-generation codecs such as VVC are an important part of the answer, but lasting progress requires optimization across the entire video ecosystem.

Biber: The industry has always advanced by improving efficiency while delivering better experiences. That remains true today. Organizations that combine innovation with measurement-based operational improvements will be best positioned to support the next generation of AI-driven video applications while managing both costs and energy consumption.

Conclusion

The rapid expansion of AI, immersive applications and enterprise video is transforming video compression from a specialized engineering discipline into a strategic infrastructure consideration. As organizations confront rising bandwidth requirements, growing energy demands and increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of digital operations, the discussion is shifting beyond image quality and transmission speeds toward broader questions of operational sustainability and long-term cost management.

As Eric Deniau and Aytac Biber make clear, next-generation codecs such as VVC represent only one element of a larger transformation. Sustainable video delivery will require organizations to optimize the entire lifecycle of video—from encoding and transport to hardware implementation and endpoint consumption—while maintaining the quality of experience users expect. For technology leaders, the challenge is no longer simply supporting more video. It is building an infrastructure capable of sustaining continued growth while balancing performance, economics and environmental responsibility.