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Record-breaking chip can transmit entire internet's traffic per second  ↦

logged by jerodsanto 2022-10-25T15:13:00Z #hardware

The speed record for data transmission using a single light source and optical chip has been shattered once again. Engineers have transmitted data at a blistering rate of 1.84 petabits per second (Pbit/s), almost twice the global internet traffic per second.

For context, if you’re fortunate enough to be living the “gig-life” (as my local carrier markets it) with a 1-gigabit connection at your house… a petabit is a million times faster than that. And that record-setting 1.84 petabit speed is just the start:

But the new chip is far from finished breaking records, according to the team behind it. Using a computational model to scale the data transmission potential of the system, the researchers claim that it could eventually reach eye-watering speeds of up to 100 Pbit/s.

Shut up and take my money?!

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James Harr

James Harr

2022-10-27T01:55:30Z ago

I don’t mean to downplay the achievement, but 1Pb/s of internet traffic seems low for some reason. I feel like there’s a lot more cats crawling through the tubes.

https://youtu.be/mWqe8_5SUvk

If you haven’t looked at optical networking, this is worth a watch. Richard does this every year for NANOG and updates it with the latest info.

He takes you on a journey from pushing light through fiber, to pushing multiple colors of light through fiber (and splitting it out), to now directing those colors of light at points (metaphor – blue stops here, red continues on, green turns right), to optical amplification – have a mix of 7 different colors? Run it through this device and get MORE of the same color without ever leaving the analog realm. And guess what? It even has the same polarization!

Now you say you want to change the direction a given color travels without sending an engineer to swap cables? They have that.

What happens when you push too much power through fiber? Lots of bizarre things.

Optical networking is amazing stuff. We routinely push 800Gbps over a single wavelength. Occasionally 400Gbps or 600Gbps if it’s a longer distance.

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