On September 21, 2026, Meta rolled out plans for its Petal project—a massive transatlantic subsea cable set to connect the US and France. The cable is expected to stretch about 7,000 kilometers, with a projected capacity of 1 Pbps (that’s 1,000 Tbps). Meta aims to have Petal up and running by 2029.

What Meta Announced

According to Meta, Petal will be the first transoceanic cable to hit the petabit-per-second class and the first to deploy multi-core fiber at scale for commercial use. The new backbone architecture will push performance into the petabit-per-second range—a serious leap in global data capacity.

Specs and Tech

The Petal cable will run roughly 7,000 km between France and the US. Meta says the project is engineered for a peak throughput of 1 Pbps, equal to 1,000 Tbps. Thanks to multi-core fiber, Petal is designed to scale up for the kind of data loads we’ll see in the future.

Launch Timeline

Meta is targeting a 2029 launch for Petal. The company hasn’t shared further details about the build-out or project milestones just yet.