Japan’s NICT achieves 1.02 petabit per second data transmission over fiber

Researchers from the Network Research Institute at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have announced that they successfully conducted the world’s first demonstration of more than 1 petabit per second transmission in a multi-core fiber (MCF).

NICT constructed the transmission system using 4-core MCF with standard 0.125 mm cladding diameter, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology (WDM is a method of transmitting optical signals of different wavelengths within a single optical fiber) and mixed optical amplification systems. The system allowed transmission of 1.02 petabit per second over a distance of 51.7 km.

That’s like transmitting 127,500 GB of data per second. Researchers said that 1 petabit per second is equivalent to 10 million channels of 8K broadcasting per second.

The demonstration is also a major step toward the realization of ultra-high-throughput optical links with standard cladding diameter fibers compatible with existing conventional cable infrastructure for near-term adoption. Its application can also be used for the backbone communication system that will support Beyond 5G information services.