125 TB per second: new fiber with neural networks increases bandwidth by 10,000 times

Chinese researchers from Shanghai University announcedthat they have managed to increase the speed of data transmission over fiber by 10,000 times compared to current standards. Given that modern fiber optic lines operate at around 100 Gbps, the new technology can reach an impressive 1 million Gbps (or 125 TB per second). This is made possible by eliminating the severe bandwidth limitations of traditional fiber optic networks.

Those familiar with fiber optic technology may be surprised twice:

1. That such speeds are even possible.
2. That fiber optics, which is already considered the fastest method of data transmission, had so much potential.

After all, it is impossible to change the speed of light. So what’s the secret?

It turns out that we have not been using fiber optics to their full potential, even though they are far superior to the copper wires that are still used in data centers and server networks. The thing is that there are two types of fiber optic cables:

• Single-mode fiber – used in core networks, stable, but has limited bandwidth, as it transmits data through only one channel.
• Multimode fiber – theoretically has a higher speed potential, but due to interference and signal overload, it has not been able to provide stable operation in the past.

Due to these limitations, the data transmission rate in multimode fiber has hardly increased for decades.

How did scientists solve the problem?

Chinese researchers have proposed embedding tiny neural networks, the size of a grain of salt, directly into multimode fiber optic cables. These solutions can effectively separate the signals of different channels, preventing «confusion» data during transmission.

The technology was tested over a distance of about 2000 km between a hospital on Hainan Island and Shanghai University. The experiment confirmed that the new fiber provides much higher transmission speeds without signal loss.

If this technology is implemented on a massive scale, much faster Internet connections will appear all over the world. This could mean the end of waiting for files to be downloaded and videos to be streamed in 8K.

However, it’s important to understand that this is not just about increasing data transfer speeds, but rather about expanding bandwidth. Therefore, although downloads will become much faster, this technology will not solve the problem of high pings during online games with other continents. Light travels fast, but even with new technologies, servers cannot «leapfrog» due to physical limitations. Therefore, distance-related network delays will still be a problem.

Recently, Speedtest published Internet speed rating. Ukraine was ranked 71st.

Source: tomshardware