Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
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The past three decades have seen massive improvements in internet speeds, but the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) isn’t close to finished.
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In a new study, detailed earlier this year at a convention in San Francisco, scientists led by NICT showed off a 19-core optical cable capable of transmission speeds of 1.02 petabits per second across more than 1,800 kilometers—that’s roughly 4 million times faster than typical home broadband.
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Although not necessary to stream the latest show on Netflix, these ultra-fast cables could one day be the backbone of our post-5G society.
Japan doesn’t typically do things at half speed. After all, this is a country whose post-war growth was termed the “economic miracle,” and it’s also the first country to deliver high-speed train service, known as the shinkansen. So it’s no wonder that the world-record-holder for fastest internet now resides in the nation.
If you’re were born in the 20th century (and maybe even a little after), you’ve witnessed first-hand the rapid increases in internet speeds. Dial-up internet, for example, delivered only 56 kilobits per second. Now, median internet speeds in the U.S. are around 242.38 megabits, with gigabit speeds becoming more readily available in cities. However, optical-based internet speeds haven’t reach an upper limit yet—in fact, researchers around the world are regularly pushing internet speeds higher and higher.
In 2024, scientists at Aston University in the U.K successfully achieved 402 terabits per second internet speed, which is roughly 1.6 million times faster than typical home broadband. Now, a new team of scientists led by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan have absolutely shattered that record by achieving a transmit speed of 1.02 petabits of data—about 4 million times faster than home internet—over a distance over 1,800 kilometers. NICT previously achieved even faster speeds (1.7 petabits) but only transmitted over 63 kilometers.
As Live Science notes, at 1.02 petabyte speeds, you could download the entirety of the Internet Archive—a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving every corner of the internet—in just four minutes or so. The results of the study were presented at the 48th Optical Fiber Communications Conference in San Francisco earlier this year.
While this is an optical transmission system—similar to optical internet systems used for home internet—this experimental version pushes the design of these cables to the limit. The team created a 19-core optical fiber, but with a common cladding to multiply transmission rate. During the experiment, NICT scientists and their international collaborators ran the signal through an 86.1-kilometer cable (along with amplifiers that boosted the signal before entering the cable). Then, the signal traveled 21 times through a recirculating loop, which accounts for the 1,802 kilometer distance.
While an impressive achievement, you might ask who really needs 1.02 petabytes of internet speed. Well, as the authors note in a press release detailing the breakthrough, “the volume of data traffic is expected to increase explosively due to new communication services, and the realization of advanced information and communication infrastructure is required.”
As our world becomes ever more connected—whether that looks like the Internet of Things, the smart grid, AI, or high-tech inventions we haven’t even imagined yet—it will need a robust internet system that can ferry information around the globe in record time.
Luckily for us, Japan is on the case.
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