Sumitomo Electric Industries Limited and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) set world record for long-distance high-capacity transmission, achieving transmission at 1.02 petabits per second over a distance of 1,808 km using 19-core optical fiber with a standard 0.125 mm cladding diameter.
May 30, 2025
Sumitomo Electric Industries Limited and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have set a new world record for long-distance high-capacity transmission in optical fiber communications, achieving data transmission at 1.02 petabits per second over a distance of 1,808 km using 19-core optical fiber with a standard 0.125 mm cladding diameter.
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Sumitomo was responsible for the design and manufacture of a coupled 19-core optical fiber that features a standard cladding diameter, achieving a reduction in optical fiber losses across multiple wavelength ranges (the C-band and the L-band) by optimizing the structure and arrangement of the cores.
NICT was responsible for building a transmission system that maximizes the performance of the fiber, as well as developing and demonstrating an optical amplification relay function capable of simultaneously amplifying signals from all 19 cores.
The technology can be applied to a network connecting major cities inside or outside Japan. The results translate to a value of 1.86 exabits per second-km when converted to the commonly used metric of the “capacity-distance product,” setting a new world record for optical fibers with a standard cladding diameter.
The technology is expected to make a significant contribution to both the expansion of the communication capacity and the long-range extension of optical communication infrastructure in the future, when communication demand increases.
