Digging in a little, based on similarities in the readme and the mailing list being the same, it appears to be related to Intel[1]. Looks to be an extension of Intel's Visual Cloud Computing efforts[2].
Edit: Feeling dumb, but confirmed, Intel is also in the license[3] :)
Edit: Feeling dumb, but confirmed, Intel is also in the license[3] :)
[1]: https://github.com/intel/SVT-HEVC
[2]: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/cloud-computing/visu...
[3]: https://github.com/OpenVisualCloud/SVT-AV1/blob/master/LICEN...