Petabit transatlantic cable system planned for 2029

Meta, NEC and Sumitomo Electric are collaborating on a 7000 km optical submarine cable system that will run between the US and France.

Dubbed ‘Petal’, the project is being built in response to a need for further increases in communication capacity and efficiency. The transatlantic route connecting North America and Europe is particularly important for linking major digital hubs.

​“Meta continues to invest in digital infrastructure, such as subsea cables, because they are foundational to delivering the high-quality services our end-users expect from us,” ​​said ​​​Alex-Handrah Aimé, Vice President of Network Investments at Meta​​​​.

“Petal will set a new standard for what cable systems can deliver and is a testament to the deep collaboration and innovation between Meta, NEC and Sumitomo Electric.”

The infrastructure will consist of an ambitious petabit-class optical submarine cable system. With one petabit equalling ​​​​​​1000 ​terabits​ of data volume, Petal is designed to enable ultra-large-volume data communications at the petabit level per second.

The system will employ two-core fibre, consisting of two optical transmission paths within a single fibre and an advanced single-housing repeater technology with reduced power consumption. This will enable single-end feeding for maximum network resilience. With 48 pairs of spatial channels (core-pairs), Petal will achieve a transoceanic transmission capacity that doubles the companies’ previous collaboration, ‘​​Anjana’, a transoceanic ​​24-fibre-pair system.

While Meta will​ ​fund and operate the cable system​​, NEC will be responsible for the overall design and construction of the two-core system. Sumitomo Electric will provide the two-core fibre for the submarine cable system construction.

Eduardo Mateo, Chief Strategy Officer of the Submarine Network Division at NEC, said achieving petabit-per-second capacity across a transoceanic submarine system represented a major technological milestone in the history of global telecommunications.

“This achievement reflects NEC’s sustained investment in research and development, combined with decades of experience delivering some of the world’s most advanced, reliable and secure submarine networks that interconnect the globe,” he said.

Takehiko Okada, General Manager, Optical Fiber & Cable Division at Sumitomo Electric, added: “We are thrilled that Sumitomo Electric’s innovative submarine multi-core fibre, ‘2C Z-PLUS ULL Fiber’ will contribute to ‘Petal’, an epoch-making Pb-class transatlantic cable system.

“As a pioneer with nearly four decades of experience in ultra-low-loss submarine fibre manufacturing, we are committed to supporting the global network expansion essential to realising a highly digital future.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Negro Elkha. Image used for illustrative purposes only.