Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta), NEC Corporation (NEC) and Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. have started collaboration to build “Petal”, the world’s first commercial petabit optical submarine cable system.
In recent years, the need for resilient, reliable connectivity has grown rapidly as communication traffic has continued to increase. The transatlantic route connecting North America and Europe in particular serves as a crucial communication infrastructure linking major digital hubs, and further increases in communication capacity and efficiency are urgently required.
Petal will become a transatlantic optical submarine system that will span approximately 7,000 km between the United States and France and is scheduled to commence operation in 2029.
Petal will employ two-core fibre, with two optical transmission paths within a single fibre and a single-housing repeater technology with reduced power consumption, enabling single-end feeding for maximum network resilience. With 48 pairs of spatial channels (core-pairs), Petal will achieve a transoceanic transmission capacity that doubles Anjana, the world’s first transoceanic 24 fibre-pair system (another collaboration between Meta, NEC, and Sumitomo Electric) and aims to be the world’s first petabit-class optical submarine cable system.
Meta will fund and operate the cable system. As part of this, NEC will be responsible for the overall design and construction of the two-core system, and Sumitomo Electric will provide the two-core fibre for the submarine cable system construction.
Comments from each company regarding this matter are as follows.
Alex-Handrah Aimé, the vice president of network investments at Meta, said: “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. 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.”
Eduardo Mateo, the chief strategy officer of the submarine network division at NEC Corporation, said: “Achieving petabit-per-second capacity across a transoceanic submarine system represents 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.”
Takehiko Okada, the general manager of the optical Fibre and cable division at Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., said: “We are thrilled that Sumitomo Electric’s innovative submarine multi-core fibre, “2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL” 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.”
