Ciena and Meta Set New World Record for Subsea Data Transmission Speed

Ciena and Meta Set New World Record for Subsea Data Transmission Speed March 18, 2026 In a landmark achievement for global telecommunications infrastructure, Ciena Corporation and Meta have successfully demonstrated a record-breaking subsea data transmission speed. This trial underscores the escalating demand for ultra-high-capacity, energy-efficient networks capable of supporting data-intensive applications like artificial intelligence across vast intercontinental distances. The companies announced they transmitted data at 800 gigabits per second (800G) over a single, unregenerated wavelength on an undersea optical link. The signal traveled approximately 10,319 miles (16,608 kilometers) point-to-point between Singapore and California. The trial was conducted on a fiber pair owned by Meta within the Bifrost subsea cable system, a critical artery connecting Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Guam, and the US West Coast. The feat was enabled by Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme solution, which integrates its WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optics and the 6500 Reconfigurable Line System (RLS). This technology combination achieved a total fiber pair capacity of 18 terabits per second while operating within a compact 10-rack unit submarine line terminal setup. Notably, the system reduced power consumption per bit by 50% compared to Ciena's previous generation of modems. Brian Lavallée, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Ciena, emphasized the significance of the trial: “Establishing a world-record distance for a single-carrier 800G wavelength, this achievement reinforces the ‘800G everywhere’ value of WL6e, demonstrating that ultra-high-capacity wavelengths can perform reliably across the longest and most demanding subsea routes.” He added, “The results are not only exceptional from a scale perspective, but also remarkable in terms of space and power efficiency — a critical advantage in subsea landing stations where every rack unit and watt matters.” For Meta, the collaboration is part of its strategy to build an AI-ready global network infrastructure that minimizes both physical footprint and carbon emissions. The successful trial comes as Ciena reports strong financial performance, with record fiscal first-quarter revenue of $1.43 billion, a 33% year-over-year increase. CEO Gary Smith highlighted the growing opportunity, stating, “Furthermore, to monetize AI for both training and inference workloads, the latter of which represents another significant growth vector still in its infancy, the foundational requirement is again high-speed connectivity.” This demonstration sets a new benchmark for trans-Pacific cable performance, promising to enhance data center interconnectivity and support the exponential growth of global data traffic with improved efficiency. Source: datacenterdynamics