Meta has announced Petal, a new subsea cable that will connect France and the United States. The cable is billed as the first of its kind to deliver petabit-level capacity across a transoceanic route.

A New Milestone for Subsea Cables

Petal will span roughly 7,000 km (4,300 miles) across the Atlantic. It is expected to enter service in 2029. Once live, the cable will carry twice the capacity of today’s most advanced transoceanic systems. This makes it the largest single generational jump in capacity for any transoceanic subsea cable to date.

According to Meta, the increase in capacity won’t come with a matching rise in power use or physical infrastructure. That’s a departure from how subsea cables have traditionally scaled.

Why Subsea Cables Matter

Subsea cables carry about 99% of the world’s intercontinental internet traffic. That includes everyday messages, news, video, and other data moving between continents. As global demand for digital services grows, so does the need for more capable subsea cable systems. Investment in this infrastructure helps expand digital access for people and businesses worldwide.

The Technology Behind Petal

Petal will be the first system to deploy multi-core fiber technology at transoceanic distances. Traditional cables measure capacity in terabits per second. Petal, however, is designed to deliver 1 petabit per second, enough, Meta says, for roughly 75% of the world’s population to stream music simultaneously.

Meta is developing the project with two partners. NEC, a specialist in subsea cable systems, and Sumitomo Electric Industries, a major fiber producer, are both involved in building the system. French telecom company Orange is supporting the cable’s landing on France’s Atlantic coast.

Part of a Larger Investment Push

Meta says it has backed more than 20 subsea cable projects to date, including Project Waterworth, and has helped deploy hundreds of thousands of kilometers of undersea cable globally.

Additional technical details on the two-core fiber technology behind Petal’s capacity are available on Meta’s engineering blog.

Looking Ahead

With a planned 2029 launch, Petal marks a new benchmark for undersea infrastructure. As reliance on cross-continental data transfer keeps rising, projects like this subsea cable are becoming central to how the global internet stays connected.

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