Petal: the most powerful submarine cable, ready in 2029

Petal, funded by Meta, will be a 7,000 km fiber-optic submarine cable between the U.S. and France, with a scheduled completion in 2029 and a record-breaking capacity of 1 million Gbit/s, according to ANSA.

Meta description: Petal, funded by Meta, will be a 7,000 km fiber-optic submarine cable between the U.S. and France, delivering 1 million Gbit/s and pioneering multi-core technology.

The Petal Project: Submarine Cable Between the United States and France

The Meta-led consortium — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — announced the project Petal, a transatlantic submarine cable with an estimated length of about 7,000 km that will connect the east coast of the United States to France, with a completion date estimated for 2029, according to ANSA. The project is part of a new wave of private investments in global connectivity infrastructure funded by large tech companies.

Private investment in submarine cables has become routine in strategies of companies that rely on high bandwidth for cloud services, social networks, and streaming platforms. For readers interested in implications for Italy and Europe, follow our Italy News and analyses on digital infrastructure in Life in Italy.

Technology and Capacity: Multi-Core Fiber and 1 Million Gbit/s

According to ANSA, Petal will have an announced capacity of 1 million gigabits per second (1 Pbit/s) — a figure the source itself describes, in a helpful analogy, as equivalent to sending up to 25,000 high-definition movies simultaneously. The major technical novelty is the commercial use of multi-core fiber, where each optical strand incorporates two cores.

• Each core allows transmitting optical signals in opposite directions, which effectively doubles the capacity of each strand compared to conventional single-core fibers.
• The strands will have a diameter of about 125 micrometers, comparable to the thickness of a human hair, according to ANSA.
• The combination of multiple cores per fiber and advanced multiplexing techniques makes the reported aggregate capacity achievable.

The use of multi-core fibers in a commercial submarine system is a technical milestone: until now, many transatlantic routes operate with single-core fibers and capacity gains come from new fiber pairs or more efficient transmission equipment. Petal bets on a fiber-architecture approach to scalable capacity increases without necessarily multiplying the physical number of strands.

Why This Matters for Brazilians and Descendants

Although the cable connects the United States and France, the construction of new transatlantic routes has indirect global impacts that interest Brazilians and people of Brazilian descent who use international digital services:

• Routes and capacity: new routes between the Americas and Europe can relieve congestion on existing links, benefiting the quality and availability of international traffic that passes through these points.
• Digital services: increased capacity reduces latency and improves stability for applications that rely on the transatlantic backbone — videoconferencing, streaming, online gaming, and cloud platforms.
• Investment trends: funding by large tech companies shows that private players will continue to shape where and how global infrastructure is expanded, influencing competitiveness and the availability of online services.

For those planning to live, work, or pursue processes related to Italian Citizenship outside Brazil, connectivity improvements can mean more stable access to videoconferences, consular portals, and appointment platforms. Learn more about requirements and news on the topic in our section Italian Citizenship.

Commercial and Market Impacts

Petal is also a strategic move in the infrastructure market — increasing transatlantic capacity attracts cloud providers, content operators, and companies that require high bandwidth. According to ANSA, initiatives like this can spur:

• competition for lower-latency routes;
• pressure to modernize equipment at landing stations;
• new public-private partnerships and commercial agreements between operators.

For those following news about Italy and Europe, changes in the international communications network can influence the availability of international services that pass through European routes; stay updated in Italy News.

Risks and Next Steps

Large-scale submarine projects face technical, regulatory, and environmental challenges: route studies, landing licenses, authorization for cable landings in territorial waters, and impact assessments are steps preceding the physical installation of the cable. Realization by 2029 depends on executing these steps and coordinating among technical partners and authorities in the landing countries.

Petal represents a new generation of cables with multi-core fibers and a much higher aggregate capacity than previous systems. The commercial adoption of this technology could set a standard for future submarine projects.

Source: ANSA.