New chip transfers twice the world's internet data every second

A new optical chip, used in tandem with a single ray of infrared laser beam, has achieved what is likely the new world record for the highest data transfer speed observed till date. The record bandwidth achieved is 1.8 petabits per second — or 1.8 million gigabits per second, and was achieved by transferring the data over hundreds of light frequencies through the infrared laser beam over a distance of 7.2 kilometres within a specialised optic fiber cable. 

For reference, the bandwidth achieved by the researchers is 37.5 million times faster than the average bandwidth of fixed-line internet services in India. According to a report by global internet services analysis platform Ookla published on September 19, India’s average fixed-line broadband bandwidth was 48.2 megabits per second (Mbps). 

The researchers at the Technical University of Denmark also added that the speed achieved amounts to twice the total volume of data that is transferred on the internet around the world, every second. The move marks a new record of laboratory-controlled data transfer speeds — and could be key to improving data center, information technology (IT) infrastructure, long distance data transfer, and regional and edge data centre facilities in the long run. 

To be sure, the demand for ways to increase the bandwidth of data transfers around the world is high — especially with the advent of services such as mixed reality and the metaverse, which require video-heavy immersive visual content. Real-time metaverse interactions, such as those envisioned by Meta’s Horizon Worlds, will require significantly higher bandwidth of data, coupled with minimal latencies of network — and new technologies such as the optical chip and infrared laser beam could likely help create the same. 

In July last year, researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) created a world record for the time by using its own version of advanced optical fiber technology to achieve data transfer bandwidth of 319 terabits per second. 

The new bandwidth achieved by the researchers in Denmark is nearly six times faster than what Japan's NICT researchers had achieved then.