Asymmetric Numeral Systems (ANS)

The language of information recording that shapes the world of electronics

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Asymmetric Numeral Systems, also called “ANS coding,” has in recent years become the primary method for computers and smartphones around the world to record information – thanks to its better performance, replacing previous methods (Huffman and arithmetic coding), saving data storage media, telecommunications links, energy, time, hardware.

ANS is used in products from Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the Linux kernel (at the heart of smartphones and servers), among others, or JPEG XL which should become the primary format for photos and graphics.

WHAT NEEDS DOES THE INNOVATION ADDRESS?

For efficient recording of information, especially in data compression, a so-called entropy encoder is used, transforming symbols with variable frequencies, into a sequence of bits that is stored and transmitted. The ANS family of methods has proven to be the best at this task, so it has supplanted the previous ones – becoming the primary way of recording information around the world, the modern language of electronics.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Before ANS, a compromise was required – either fast yet suboptimal Huffman coding was used, or optimal yet slow arithmetic coding. ANS allowed to combine their advantages – remaining optimal allows even faster implementations than Huffman coding, so it practically displaced both methods – becoming the primary method of recording information.

Learn more!

Asymmetric Numeral Systems (ANS)

Jaroslaw Duda, Jagiellonian University

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