1.02 pentabits per second.
That's 3,525,264 times faster than the average broadband download speed in the U.S.
More from Tech Radar:
A team led by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), working with Sumitomo Electric and European collaborators, has achieved a transmission speed of 1.02 petabits per second over 1,808 kilometers.
The test used a 19-core optical fiber with a standard cladding diameter of 0.125 mm, meaning it's the same thickness as the single-core fibers already deployed in networks around the world.
Instead of requiring entirely new infrastructure, the cable squeezes 19 separate light paths into the space typically used for one.
That allows for a dramatic leap in capacity while staying compatible with existing systems.
This doesn't require new infrastructure. It works with existing cables.
This test was also the first time a "petabit-class signal" has gone more than 1,000 kilometers in a single cable.
And get this: Last year, the same research team at NICT broke the then-record with 402 terabits per second (a little under half of the new record). How long do you think it will take to break that record again?
Although it won't transform work or home connections overnight, the research shows how far standard fiber can still go. The team now aims to refine amplifier efficiency and signal processing to move closer to real-world deployment.
With global data traffic continuing to grow, advances like this offer a way to stretch infrastructure further without the need to dig new trenches.
Future generations of gamers will have no idea why this GIF is funny:
It's wild to think of how fast computing has gotten over the past two or three decades ... but even wilder to think about how fast it will get in the next two or three decades.
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