Petal marks a major milestone in subsea innovation as the largest generational capacity increase for transoceanic cables to date, dramatically expanding global bandwidth.

As the first transoceanic subsea cable with petabit-per-second capacity, Petal connects the United States and France over roughly 7,000 kilometers, effectively doubling the capacity of the world’s most advanced transoceanic links.

Meta is a leading investor in subsea infrastructure, backing more than 20 projects including Project Waterworth, underscoring its long-term commitment to global connectivity.

Meta’s blog post provides additional engineering details on the two-core fiber technology that enables petabit-scale capacity.

The system uses multi-core fiber technology to deliver 1 petabit per second, enabling an estimated 75% of the world’s population to stream music simultaneously, while achieving higher capacity with modest increases in power and physical infrastructure.

Meta is the project lead, partnering with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries, with Orange serving as the landfall partner on France’s Atlantic coast.

Petal is slated to enter service in 2029 and is positioned to redefine undersea infrastructure capacity and the digital backbone that connects continents.