NEC Corporation has secured a contract to construct a subsea cable for Meta Platforms, promising a data transmission capacity of 1 petabit per second—double that of existing leading undersea cables. The cable, named Petal, is scheduled to become operational in 2029 and will span approximately 7,000 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, connecting the United States and France. Specific landing locations have not yet been disclosed.
The Petal cable will incorporate NEC’s advanced multicore optical fiber technology, which allows a single optical fiber to carry two separate light paths or cores, effectively doubling data capacity compared to standard fibers with a single core. The cable is designed to transmit 125,000 gigabytes of data per second, surpassing the current maximum transoceanic transmission speed of 500 terabits per second.
Meta will own and operate the Petal system, while NEC will oversee the design and construction. Sumitomo Electric Industries is partnering as the supplier of the multicore fiber. Undersea cables are vital to global communications infrastructure, carrying approximately 99% of international internet traffic, according to the International Telecommunication Union.
The subsea cable market is highly concentrated, with NEC, U.S.-based SubCom, and France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks controlling over 90% of the sector. NEC currently holds a 25% market share and aims to increase that to 35% by 2030. The Atlantic route has traditionally been dominated by SubCom and Alcatel. Takahiro Kashima, director of NEC’s submarine business development department, highlighted the competitive edge provided by NEC’s multicore technology amid rising demand for higher-capacity cables, driven in part by artificial intelligence and growing digital traffic.
Kashima also noted the challenges of increasing data capacity by simply enlarging cable size, which leads to higher material costs and logistical difficulties due to heavier cables requiring more cable-laying vessels—an industry already facing a shortage of such ships.
The Petal project marks NEC’s third subsea cable effort in the Atlantic, and the company hopes to leverage its new technology to expand its footprint. The initiative aligns with broader trends wherein hyperscale technology companies like Meta and Google are increasingly investing directly in subsea networks to connect global data centers, diverging from a past dominated by traditional telecommunications firms.
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has identified the submarine cable sector as a critical component of the country’s growth strategy, with her administration exploring measures such as subsidies for cable-laying vessels to bolster national competitiveness.
Following Meta’s announcement of the Petal project early this week, the company’s shares rose more than 10%, although other positive developments may have contributed to the stock movement. NEC’s share price remained largely stable, while Sumitomo Electric Industries saw a 5.8% increase.