Meta says it is planning a France-to-United States subsea cable called Petal that would carry 1 petabit per second across roughly 7,000 kilometers. The company expects the system to enter service in 2029.
In a technical announcement, Meta said Petal is designed to use multi-core fiber at transoceanic scale. Its proposed 24 fiber-pair system would use two-core fiber, an arrangement the company says is equivalent to 48 fiber pairs and lets it increase capacity without a proportional rise in power or physical infrastructure.
The planned route would link the French Atlantic coast to the United States. NEC is the system supplier, Sumitomo Electric Industries is another engineering partner, and Orange is working with Meta on the French landing and its connection to the European network.
The headline number is enormous, but it is a capacity target for a cable that has not yet entered service. If Petal arrives on schedule, it would be another step in the move from adding more individual fibers to increasing the capacity carried by each one.