NEC will build a subsea cable for Meta Platforms that will have twice the capacity of the best existing cables and will be able to move 125,000 gigabytes of data per second across the Atlantic. The cable, which is being called Petal, will be operational in 2029. Petal will run 7,000 kilometers between the United States and France, although the exact landing points have yet to be disclosed.
Standard optical fibers have a single light path, known as a core. NEC has developed multicore technology, enabling a single fiber to have two cores, doubling the data capacity. Petal will be rated at 1 petabit per second, or 1,000 terabits per second, and will be the first subsea cable to hit that benchmark.
The current maximum transmission capacity is 500 terabits per second. Meta is the owner of the Petal system and will operate it, while NEC will be designing and building the cable. Sumitomo Electric Industries is joining the project as supplier of the multicore fiber.
Undersea cables are critical digital infrastructure, as they carry 99% of the world’s international internet traffic, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Three companies — NEC, U.S.-based SubCom and France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks — control more than 90% of the global subsea cable market. NEC has a 25% share, and has set a target to expand that to 35% by 2030.
The Atlantic market has traditionally been dominated by SubCom and Alcatel Submarine Networks. NEC’s multicore technology has brought a competitive advantage, as demand for subsea cables capable of handling massive amounts of data has been growing, he added. The solution is not as simple as just increasing the physical size of the cable, Kashima said.
Petal is NEC’s third project in the Atlantic, and the company is looking to boost its share by leveraging multicore technology, as the volume of transoceanic data traffic is expected to surge along with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. While telecom companies were dominant investors in the past, hyperscalers, such as Google and Meta, have increasingly been financing and building subsea networks to link overseas data centers. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is keen to strengthen Japan’s competitive edge in submarine cables.
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