Project Overview
Meta has announced plans to build and install a new subsea cable connecting France and the United States at a bandwidth of 1 Pbps (1 petabit per second or 1,000 terabits per second). It will become the most advanced subsea cable at its length, surpassing Meta's previous 0.5 Pbps Anjana cable system.
The Anjana system runs from Spain to the US over a distance of 4,425 miles at 480 Tbps using 24 fiber pairs. In comparison, Petal scales performance further by utilizing 48 fiber pairs and a two-core fiber-based solution with 24 pairs each to reach 1 Pbps across transatlantic distances.
Meta estimates that the new infrastructure will provide enough network capacity to enable 75% of the global population to stream music simultaneously using 160 kbps MP3s or lower quality streams.
Partnerships and Deployment
The Petal cable is projected to enter service in 2029. It will be constructed in partnership with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries, with landing support in France provided by Orange.
Today we’re announcing Petal: the world’s first petabit-class transoceanic subsea cable and the first to deploy multi-core fiber at scale.Spanning 7,000 km (4,000+ mi) between France and the United States, Petal will deliver 1 Petabit per second (1 Pbps / 1,000 Tbps), doubling… pic.twitter.com/fLSWGkHDzSSeptember 21, 2026
Technical Design and Engineering
Subsea cables remain critical infrastructure for global connectivity as connected device numbers continue to expand. Meta noted that implementing a two-core fiber design for Petal presented significant engineering hurdles, particularly regarding minimizing crosstalk and maintaining low attenuation across the entire length of the cable.
To address attenuation, manufacturers use ultra-pure synthetic silica during preform production. Crosstalk is mitigated by carefully controlling high refractive indexes in the cores against lower indexes within the surrounding medium and counter-propagating optical signals.
The fix for the attenuation involves using ultra-pure synthetic silica during the manufacture of the preform, while crosstalk is minimized by "carefully controlling for high refractive indexes in the cores against lower indexes within the surrounding medium and counter-propagating the optical signals."
Repeaters and Signal Amplification
While a subsea cable of this scale typically requires around 100 repeaters to prevent signal degradation, Petal utilizes single-body 96-amp repeaters. Each unit incorporates single-core fiber amplification and a Fan-In/Fan-Out interface to temporarily convert two-core fiber into two single-core fibers inside the repeater before converting it back following amplification, maintaining the efficiency of single-core amplification.
Meta stated that the project aims to deliver greater capacity, stronger resiliency, and future-proof infrastructure to Europe as demand for communications and reliable connectivity grows.
