Advancements in high-speed optical fiber transmission reported in China and Japan

Researchers and telecommunications companies in China and Japan have announced significant breakthroughs in long-distance, high-capacity optical fiber transmission technology.

In China, China Telecom, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company, and ZTE Corporation successfully completed the world’s first real-time bidirectional transmission verification using hollow-core optical fiber over a distance of 1,007.48 kilometers. The test achieved a total capacity of 128Tb/s using an extended C+L band. This milestone demonstrates the potential for building high-bandwidth, low-latency backbone networks using hollow-core fiber by overcoming technical hurdles such as gas absorption and signal degradation.

In Japan, a consortium including the National Institute of Informatics, RIKEN, the University of Tokyo, NTT East, and NTT West demonstrated data transfer speeds exceeding 750Gbps using the IOWN All-Photonics Network (APN). By connecting sites in Kobe and Kashiwa via an 800Gbps line, the group recorded a maximum transfer rate of approximately 775Gbps while running two applications simultaneously. The demonstration aimed to address the growing need for massive data synchronization between research institutions, particularly in preparation for the development of the Fugaku NEXT flagship system.