Researchers from Japan have set a new data transmission speed record of 1.02 petabits per second (Pb/s). Moreover, the breakthrough was achieved with the use of fiber optic cables, which must be compatible with existing infrastructure.
For reference, one petabit is equivalent to a million gigabits, which means that this new record is about 100,000 times faster than the highest-speed broadband connection available to consumers. Even NASA will get “only” 400 Gbps when ESnet6 is deployed in 2023. According to the team, with a speed of 1 Pbit/s, you can theoretically broadcast 10 million video channels per second with a resolution of 8K.
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The new record was set by researchers from the Japan National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT) using several new technologies. First, optical fiber contains four cores – glass tubes that transmit signals – instead of the usual one. Bandwidth has been increased to a record 20 THz thanks to a technology known as wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).
This frequency band consists of 801 wavelength channels divided into three bands – commonly used bands C and L, as well as the experimental band S. With some other new technologies of optical amplification and signal modulation, the team reached a record speed of 1.02 Pb/s, sending data on fiber-optic cables 51.7 km long.
This is not the first time that NICT scientists have exceeded the limit of 1 Pb/s data transfer speed. In December 2020, the team announced a record of 1.01 Pb/s when using single-core fiber-optic cable and data encoded in 15 “modes”. As impressive as this feat was, decrypting data required complex signal processing, which would have meant developing and deploying special integrated circuits if the technology were ever going to unfold on a practical scale.
The new breakthrough is not only faster but also transmits data in only one mode per core, which means that they can be read by technology that is already widely used. In addition, the four-core fiber optic cable has the same diameter of 0.125 mm as the standard cable, which means that it must be compatible with existing infrastructure and production processes.
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