Ericsson, Nokia, and Fraunhofer HHI jointly demonstrated a proof‑of‑concept codec that delivers meaningfully higher compression than today’s widely deployed standards—H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC—without a notable rise in complexity. The partners emphasize energy efficiency and scalability, which are critical for battery‑powered devices, edge compute, and large streaming workloads. Their submission was positively received by the ITU‑T Video Coding Experts Group and ISO/IEC MPEG, the bodies that jointly steward the H.26x/MPEG lineage. The work is positioned as an on‑ramp to the next standardization phase, targeting readiness to support commercial deployment around 2029–2030, in step with 6G timelines.