Azernews.Az

by Alimat Aliyeva

During recent tests, Chinese researchers successfully achieved data transmission at a total speed of 51.3 Tbps over a 206.5 km fiber-optic link without using intermediate optical amplifiers or repeaters, AzerNEWS reports.

The experiment was carried out as part of China's national program for developing next-generation fiber-optic communication technologies. The project involved China Telecom, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC), and Dekoli. The tests were conducted under conditions that closely resemble those of commercial telecommunications networks.

The project's key innovation was the use of hollow-core optical fiber. Unlike conventional optical fibers, where light travels through a glass core, the new design guides light through an air-filled core. This significantly reduces signal latency, lowers transmission losses, and greatly increases the potential bandwidth of backbone networks and data centers.

During the tests, engineers achieved up to 1.2 Tbps per wavelength, with an aggregate throughput of 51.3 Tbps over a single 206.5 km span without repeaters. According to the research team, this is the best performance ever demonstrated by a wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system operating without remotely pumped optical amplifiers.

To reach this record-breaking performance, the researchers developed an adaptive channel management system that dynamically redistributes transmission power and data rates across individual wavelengths in real time. This approach compensates for the unique propagation characteristics of hollow-core fiber and maximizes the efficiency of the available optical spectrum.

One of the most remarkable aspects of hollow-core fiber is that light propagates primarily through air rather than glass. As a result, signal latency can be reduced by up to 30% compared to conventional fiber, bringing transmission speeds closer to the speed of light in a vacuum. This technology is considered one of the most promising candidates for future 6G networks, AI-driven hyperscale data centers, and next-generation global internet infrastructure.