Katarzyna Petru
It's official – Japanese scientists have created an optical fiber that achieves a transmission speed of over 125,000 GB per second, which is about 1.25 million gigabits per second. This is four million times faster than the average internet connection in the USA. For comparison – it would allow downloading the entire contents of the Internet Archive… in less than four minutes.
The achievement was presented during the 48th edition of the Optical Fiber Communication Conference in San Francisco. The technology is backed by the Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).
1800 kilometers of fiber optic cable. And no losses
It's not just the speed that impresses here. Scientists transmitted data over a distance of 1802 kilometers – about the same distance as from Warsaw to Barcelona. Moreover, they did this using a cable with a thickness of 0.127 mm, which is the same as most standard fiber optics. The difference? Inside, there are as many as 19 transmission cores instead of one.
The new fibers have identical optical properties, which means that light behaves the same within them – this allows for minimizing interference and reducing data losses over long distances.
Previous record? Broken more than twice
For context: the previous speed record belonged to another team and was 50,250 Gbps. The new achievement by Japanese researchers more than doubles it, and this is with a significantly greater range.
To achieve such a result, the data had to be amplified and transmitted through the entire system 21 times before reaching the final recipient. This is a huge step forward in the context of future fiber optic networks – especially those that are set to handle international or intercontinental traffic.
What’s next? New infrastructure and practical implementations
According to NICT, global data demand will grow exponentially. Record-breaking fiber optic may be the answer to this problem, as it is compatible with existing infrastructure, while being many times more efficient.
What’s the next step? To check how the technology performs outside the lab. If field tests confirm effectiveness, in a few years, today’s fiber optic connections might look like modems from the 90s.
