Meta has announced Petal, a planned 7,000-kilometre (more than 4,300-mile) subsea cable linking the United States and France. The system is designed to carry 1 petabit per second—equal to 1,000 terabits or 1 million gigabits per second—and is expected to enter service in 2029. It is not operating yet; the figure is a design target for a system still under development.
What Petal is
Meta announced Petal on September 21, 2026, as a new transatlantic internet backbone. The cable will cross the Atlantic between the US and France over approximately 7,000 km, or more than 4,300 miles. Meta says its planned capacity is roughly twice that of today’s most advanced transoceanic cables.
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The project is being developed with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries. Orange is supporting plans to bring the system ashore on France’s Atlantic coast. Meta has not disclosed the precise French landing station, construction cost, financing structure or cable-laying schedule.
Route and expected timetable
US–France connection
Petal’s announced route is a direct transatlantic link between the United States and France. The approximately 7,000-km distance describes the planned cable span, not a consumer broadband route or a connection that will run directly to individual homes.
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Service is targeted for 2029
Meta expects Petal to be ready for service in 2029. Until construction, installation, testing and commissioning are complete, its one-petabit figure remains an announced engineering target rather than measured live throughput. IEEE Communications Society has also described Petal as planned rather than operational.
How the cable could reach 1 petabit per second
The capacity in familiar units
One petabit per second equals 1,000 terabits per second, or 1,000,000 gigabits per second. Fortune reported the same target as approximately 125,000 gigabytes per second. These are aggregate figures for the entire subsea system, not the speed available to one household, phone or server connection.
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Two light paths in each fiber strand
Long-distance subsea systems transmit encoded data as light through optical fibers. Conventional designs generally use single-core strands. Petal is intended to deploy multi-core, or two-core, fiber at transoceanic distance: each strand contains two separate light paths instead of one.
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In principle, adding a second core increases the amount of data carried through the same general cable architecture. Meta says this approach is intended to increase throughput without a proportional increase in power consumption or all of the physical materials needed for a second complete system.
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Why the claim is still a design objective
The two-core architecture is a development claim, not a demonstrated production result for Petal. Actual delivered capacity will depend on the final fiber design, optical equipment, repeaters, power-feeding equipment, installation and operational testing. The announced petabit number should therefore be read as a planned system capacity, not a benchmark recorded on a live cable.
Petal compared with existing transoceanic systems
| Aspect | Petal | Existing leading transoceanic systems |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 1 Pbps design target (1,000 Tbps or 1 million Gbps) | Lower than Petal’s announced target; Meta describes Petal as about twice today’s best-in-class capacity |
| Route | United States to France, approximately 7,000 km | Varies by cable and landing points |
| Fiber architecture | Planned multi-core/two-core fiber | Conventional single-core strands are typical |
| Status | Announced; service expected in 2029 | Operational systems are already carrying traffic |
| Project roles | Meta-led, with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries developing the system and Orange supporting the French landing plan | Ownership and suppliers vary by cable |
Why Meta is adding another ocean cable
Subsea infrastructure carries the intercontinental internet
Meta says subsea cables carry approximately 99% of intercontinental internet traffic. Satellites and terrestrial networks remain important, but the bulk of traffic crossing oceans travels through fiber on the seabed. A new transatlantic route adds backbone capacity and another physical path between major network regions.
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- High-End: This metal-free fiber optic audio cable, featuring a fully flexible PVC jacket, is entirely immune to electrical interference. Each cable undergoes multi-stage testing during manufacturing to ensure maximum product quality and durability
- 24K gold-plated connectors: Corrosion resistant gold plating keeps connectors clean. And because these cables are fiber optic, they provide 100 % signal transmission with 0 % loss
- No risk: 36 months manufacturer warranty
Internet growth and AI workloads
Meta presents Petal as infrastructure for rising global connectivity and the movement of data used by artificial-intelligence systems. AI training, model serving, cloud services, video, messaging and ordinary web traffic all compete for international backbone capacity. More fiber cores can expand the amount of traffic a cable carries without requiring every part of the system to be duplicated.
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What remains unknown
- The exact US and French landing stations have not been publicly specified in the announcement.
- Meta has not published a project cost, financing details or a detailed cable-laying timetable.
- The 2029 date is an expected service year, not a confirmed completion date.
- No independent source has reported a different capacity figure or a completed construction milestone.
- Meta’s comparison involving the amount of global activity that could theoretically be supported is illustrative, not an independent traffic test.
What Petal means for the internet
Petal is a planned transatlantic capacity expansion built around two-core fiber rather than simply adding another conventional cable. If the system reaches its announced specification, it would provide a major increase in aggregate US–Europe bandwidth and demonstrate whether multi-core fiber can work reliably over ocean-scale distances. For now, the key facts are the 7,000-km route, the 1-Pbps design target and the 2029 service goal—not a live speed test.
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