Japan smashed internet speed records with a mind-boggling feat. Researchers transmitted data at an eye-popping rate of 1.02 petabits per second over 1,800 kilometres.
Yes, Petabits. With a P.[1]
That’s roughly 4 million times faster than typical US broadband speeds.
Record-breaking internet speed
Ever wondered what that kind of speed means? Imagine downloading the entire Internet Archive in under four minutes.
The Internet Archive holds more than 100 petabytes of data. Give or take. This includes more than 916 billion web pages of the Wayback Machine.
It also includes roughly 4.5 million audio recordings (including 180,000 live concerts), 4 million videos (including 1.6 million TV programmes), 3 million images, and 20 million books and texts.
And it’s all done using a cable no thicker than ones already in use, but with 19 fibre cores packed inside.
Peta-what now?
A petabit is kinda big.
If you’re curious about manifesting, I highly recommend the episode #1 Neurosurgeon: How to Manifest Anything You Want & Unlock the Unlimited Power of your Mind. She interviewed the late neuroscientist Dr. Jim Doty on how the brain actually wires itself to support the things you focus on.
Still sounds abstract? Okay, let’s try this:
- A bit is the smallest piece of data, just a 0 or a 1.
- 8 bits = 1 byte, which is about one letter or character.
- A petabit is 125,000,000,000 bytes, or about 125 billion letters.
Now imagine this:
- Sending a petabit of data would be like streaming over 1 million HD movies at once.
- Or transferring the entire content of Netflix, several times over, in just one second.
That’s the kind of speed we’re talking about. Wild, right?
So, how did they pull it off?
The key is a fancy new 19-core optical fibre, designed so all strands handle light equally. It carries signal over longer distances without the loss.
The optical fibre was designed by Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. The company’s corporate philosophy is to be “worthy of society’s trust.”
It’s critical when you’re zooming data across
They also used smart amplification and signal-cleaning tricks, looping the signal 21 times to simulate the full distance and shake off interference.
Why care about beast mode internet speed?
Right now, this isn’t for your home Wi‑Fi. It’s lab-grade and not yet verified independently. But it shows what’s possible for future networks.
The researchers at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology explain:
“The biggest advantages of optical fibre transmission are the large capacity to use many wavelengths by taking advantage of the wide wavelength range of light, and it is carrying capacity with little signal degradation even over long distances.”
As data use soars with AI, 4K/8K streaming, and more devices, we’ll need infrastructure like this to handle the load .
Plus, since this cable fits existing gear, telecom providers could upgrade without ripping up everything.
What’s next?
The researchers are already looking into real-world rollout.
Think of massive cloud centres talking fast, or even global internet backbones getting a major speed boost.
For now, I’m still fine with my current 350 Mbps line, but it sure feels slow compared to this.
TL;DR: Fasted internet speed ever
Japan sets a grand new bar: 1 petabit per second over 1,800 kilometres using a 19-core fibre.
Bragging point or the future of the internet?
Probably both.
References:
[1] National Institute of Information and Communications Technology. (2025, May 29). World Record Achieved in Transmission Capacity and Distance: With 19-core Optical Fiber with Standard Cladding Diameter 1,808 km Transmission of 1.02 Petabits per Second. Published on NICT.
