During his stay in Taiwan, Axis Communications co-founder Martin Gren sat down with asmag Taiwan to share his insights into his company's vision, core technological capabilities and perspectives on the future of intelligent security ecosystems.
In 1996, Axis Communications launched the world’s first Network camera, revolutionizing the video surveillance industry. The breakthrough would not have been possible without its chief architect, co-founder Martin Gren. Recently, Gren embarked on an Asia tour taking him to Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
During his stay in Taiwan, he sat down with asmag Taiwan to share his insights into Axis’ vision, core technological capabilities and perspectives on the future of intelligent security ecosystems.
Leadership through business model, products and corporate culture
Starting out as a company making network print servers, Axis transformed the world of video surveillance with the industry’s first network camera. Today, Axis ranks in the top bracket of asmag’s Security 50 listing, with 5,500 employees with presence in more than 50 countries, making it an indisputable leader in video surveillance. To that point, Gren attributed Axis’ success to three factors: it’s business model, products, and a corporate culture that places innovation at the core.
“We only sell to distributors, and then distributors sell to various integrators; if a customer comes and wants to buy direct, the answer is no, and that means that the integrator can trust us,” Gren said. “We invest more in R&D than anyone else in the industry outside China. We make our own chips. And we have a corporate culture that has built the company and held us together.”
Consistent R&D investment for sustainable innovation
Since its beginning, Axis has adhered to the corporate vision of “Innovating for a smarter and safer world” which has guided the company’s business strategy and product development for decades. Needless to say, top-notch products need top-notch R&D. In this regard, Axis allocates 15 to 18 percent of its annual revenue to R&D, reflecting a long-standing commitment the company continues to uphold. Meanwhile, to reduce reliance on third-party platforms, Axis has been developing its own systems-on-chip (SoC) since 1999. Now in its ninth generation, ARTPEC-9 delivers high-quality video, energy efficiency, AI processing, and robust security features.
Developing in-house SoCs is no small undertaking. “The cost of the latest chip is as much as the cost of a building,” Gren said. Yet the long-term benefits make the investment worthwhile, including the enablement of Axis’ cutting-edge Zipstream video compression technology. “When we made the first camera , it only did one frame every 17 seconds. But we knew that if we build our own chips, we can make it much faster and better,” Gren said. “The more time goes, the more benefits we get from making these chips. We invented what was called ZipStream, and that was a way of saving a lot of bandwidth but still following standard video formats.”
AV1 the ‘next big thing’ in video compression
And speaking of compression, Gren highlighted ARTPEC-9’s support for AV1, which he calls “the next big thing.”
“AV1 is completely license-free, which is quite significant,” Gren said. “It delivers higher quality and better compression across the board. We believe AV1 will become a mainstream standard within just a few years.”
A decade of pioneering edge AI
According to Gren, AI technology has become the key driver of the video surveillance industry. In fact, Axis has been embedding AI capabilities in its cameras for almost 10 years, enabling “not-so-fancy” use cases such as automatic camera setting adjustment to “fancy” use cases where the AI can classify as many as 100 objects—cars, people, scooters, among others – at a time in one video stream.
“Our approach is to perform processing at the edge,” Gren explained. “This is far more power-efficient because you don’t need to pay cloud service providers for that processing. The result is a smarter solution that also delivers significant energy cost savings.”
Moving forward, Gren sees generative AI as the real transformative force in video surveillance. In the area of smart search, for example, Axis solutions allow users to type something, such as “someone walking a dog,” and the system will retrieve related video. “Think of the alternative – a guard watching through video streams. He will not have very high accuracy. But when AI does this, it will probably not even be 90 percent, but it will find a lot more than the guard,” Gren said.
Intelligent and cyber-secure by design
With a firm belief that “if there’s a network, it will be hacked,” Axis places cybersecurity at the heart of its product strategy.
The company offers a range of tools to address this challenge, including AXIS Device Manager, which enables firmware updates across hundreds of cameras if a vulnerability is discovered. Product-wise, ARTPEC incorporates multiple cybersecurity features to ensure devices are not only intelligent, but also secure. “The number one feature is secure boot and secure firmware,” Gren said. “Without a proper signature, the chip simply won’t boot. And it’s not possible to create your own firmware image for an ARTPEC-based camera.”
Future outlook: Building intelligent security ecosystems
Looking to the future, Axis will continue to prioritize their existing portfolio of state-of-the-art cameras. Yet the company will also eye intelligent security ecosystems that use data from different IP devices to better detect and respond to incidents. Axis has already rolled out IP-based audio, radar, and environmental sensing solutions. When integrated with video, these technologies significantly enhance situational awareness and proactive response.
“When we launched the IP horn speaker, many people asked, ‘Why an IP horn speaker?’” Gren recalled. “The answer is simple. If you’re using a PTZ camera and you see something happening, why not be able to say, ‘I can see you. You’re doing something wrong. Please go away.’”
A 40-Year commitment to innovation and trust
Looking back at the past 40 years, Gren said Axis has stayed true to its mission: to continuously innovate to make society safer and smarter. “Through ongoing technology innovation and portfolio expansion, Axis aims to set new standards in security by driving intelligent, autonomous, and resilient security ecosystems,” he said. Indeed, much has changed over the past 40 years, but Axis’ innovative spirit and the trust it has earned from customers and partners have remained constant. Innovating for a Smarter and Safer World is more than a vision statement; it is a commitment that Axis has fulfilled with distinction.
Product Adopted:Surveillance Cameras