The planned 7,000-kilometer link between the US and France is due in 2029. Sumitomo Electric, NEC and Orange are involved in delivering it.
Meta wants to send a petabit of data per second across the Atlantic through a cable called Petal. Announced on September 21, the roughly 7,000-kilometer (4,350-mile) system is expected to enter service in 2029, connecting the United States and France.
At its planned capacity, the system would carry 1,000 terabits per second. Meta calls Petal the first transoceanic cable designed to reach that scale. The figure describes the whole cable system, rather than the speed a household would receive.
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Two cores inside a single strand
Inside the cable, the change is in the glass itself. Conventional optical fiber carries light through one core. Petal will use two, allowing its 24 fiber pairs to provide as many optical paths as 48 conventional pairs, according to Meta’s engineering explanation.
Sumitomo Electric is supplying the fiber. NEC will manufacture and install the system, while Orange is working on the French landing. Meta says the design also fits within existing power-feed equipment limits, avoiding a jump to higher operating voltages.
The 2029 target leaves manufacturing and installation ahead. Petal is not yet carrying traffic across the ocean.
The ocean still presents familiar risks
Adding capacity does not remove the need to protect the cable. Fishing equipment and anchors remain a threat to the infrastructure that carries data between continents.
The International Telecommunication Union lists both activities among the leading causes of damage. Its April 2026 assessment also identifies earthquakes and underwater landslides as risks, and cites more than 170 cable repairs worldwide in 2025.
When a cable fails, operators need repair crews and other routes for their traffic. Doubling the optical paths inside one cable gives it more capacity, but those paths still share the same route across the seabed.
An Atlantic addition to a wider buildout
Petal sits alongside Meta’s broader investment in international connections. The company announced Project Waterworth in February 2025, describing a planned system longer than 50,000 kilometers across five continents. CPG previously covered Waterworth’s planned international route.
For Petal, the planned French landing and the manufacturing and installation work now sit between the engineering announcement and commercial service. Meta expects that work to produce an operating Atlantic connection in 2029.
