Meta says Petal subsea cable to carry 1 petabit a second
The cable will run about 7,000km between France and the United States and is expected in service in 2029, Meta said on Monday.
Meta said on Monday it will build a subsea cable called Petal between France and the United States, and put its capacity at 1 petabit a second. The cable is expected to enter service in 2029, according to the company's announcement.
The capacity figure is its own. Meta described Petal as the largest generational increase in cable capacity of any repeatered subsea system, and said it doubles the capacity of its Anjana cable. No independent measurement exists, because the cable has not been laid.
Meta gave the length as about 7,000km, or 4,300 miles. It named NEC as turnkey supplier and Sumitomo Electric Industries as fibre manufacturer, with Orange as the landing party in France. Meta said Petal is the first subsea cable system to deploy multi-core fibre at scale, using 2-core fibre in a 24 fibre-pair system.
Meta's announcement does not connect Petal to AI workloads. It frames the cable as meeting demand for communications and reliable connectivity, and says the capacity would let 75 percent of the world's population stream music at the same time. What share of it may carry AI traffic is not stated.
The account BullTheoryio said Meta shares were up 7 percent on Monday and attributed the move to the cable. Other accounts recorded the same move without giving a cause, with wallstengine and Kalshi_Finance both noting the stock passing $700. The link to the cable is one account's reading, and Meta's announcement does not mention the share price.