The roughly 7,000-kilometre system will be the first transoceanic subsea cable built for petabit-class capacity and the first to deploy multi-core fibre technology at scale, according to Meta. The company said the system would carry twice the capacity of the most advanced transoceanic cables operating at comparable distances without requiring a proportional increase in power or physical infrastructure.
Petal will be developed with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries, while Orange will support plans to bring the cable ashore on France’s Atlantic coast and connect it to terrestrial networks. NEC is serving as the turnkey system supplier, with responsibility for engineering, manufacturing and installing the cable system, while Sumitomo Electric is supplying the two-core optical fibre.
The project marks a further expansion of Meta’s investment in the physical infrastructure that carries global internet traffic, as technology companies seek greater network capacity for cloud computing, video, artificial intelligence and other data-intensive services. Subsea fibre-optic cables carry the overwhelming majority of intercontinental digital traffic and remain critical to the operation of global communications networks.
Meta said Petal would deliver 1 petabit per second, equivalent to 1,000 terabits per second. That would double the capacity of Anjana, the company’s 24-fibre-pair transatlantic system, which has been designed for about 0.5 petabit per second. Meta described the increase as the largest generational capacity jump yet for a repeatered subsea cable system.
The technical advance centres on two-core fibre. Conventional optical fibre uses a single core to carry light, while Petal’s design places two cores within each fibre strand. Meta plans to use the technology in a 24-fibre-pair configuration that is functionally equivalent to 48 conventional fibre pairs, allowing the system to increase capacity without doubling the number of individual fibres.
Maintaining performance across an ocean-scale link requires signals to be amplified repeatedly along the route. Meta said a cable of Petal’s length would typically need about 100 repeaters. The new system will use a single-body repeater capable of handling 96 fibre cores, with interfaces that separate the two-core fibre into single-core paths for amplification before recombining them.
The design is also intended to keep the system within existing electrical limits. Meta said Petal would operate within power-feeding equipment rated at up to 18 kilovolts, avoiding the need for a broader redesign and requalification of subsea equipment that higher voltage requirements could trigger.
The project builds on a series of transatlantic cable investments involving Meta. Marea, developed with Microsoft, was designed with eight fibre pairs and an initial capacity of 160 terabits per second. Meta later moved to systems using 16 and 24 fibre pairs as operators pushed more traffic through the limited physical space available inside submarine cables.
Petal’s planned capacity also highlights the rapid escalation in bandwidth requirements linked to large-scale computing. Meta has been expanding its network infrastructure alongside investment in artificial intelligence data centres, while other major technology groups have also increased spending on dedicated subsea systems to secure high-capacity routes between key markets.
The company has invested in more than 20 subsea cable projects. Its broader programme includes Project Waterworth, a planned system spanning more than 50,000 kilometres and linking five continents, as well as regional projects designed to increase capacity across the Asia-Pacific and other heavily trafficked corridors.
Orange said the French landing would reinforce transatlantic connectivity and extend capacity into European networks. The telecoms group is working with Meta on the landing infrastructure and onward terrestrial connections from France’s Atlantic coast.
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