- Air-filled fiber carried 51.3 Tb/s over 206.5 km without assistance
- Researchers push 1.2 Tb/s on each wavelength over record distances
- AI infrastructure increasingly depends on networks that move data faster everywhere
Chinese fiber manufacturer YOFC says it has completed a hollow fiber transmission trial that achieved 51.3 Tb/s over 206.5 km without regeneration.
The demonstration involved a collaboration with China Telecom and optical equipment manufacturer Dekoli, using a live network rather than just laboratory conditions.
The researchers achieved a transmission rate of 1.2 Tbps per wavelength while avoiding intermediate signal regeneration equipment along the way.
Another type of fiber built around air rather than glass
Unlike conventional optical cables that guide light through solid silica cores, hollow core fibers transmit signals through air-filled channels.
This architectural difference allows light to travel faster while reducing several optical distortions that traditionally limit transmission efficiency over distance.
YOFC previously said its hollow core technology could deliver 31% lower latency and 47% improved transmission speeds.
The company now claims that the latest test establishes the highest repeaterless wavelength division multiplexing capability ever demonstrated under field conditions.
Researchers described this achievement as the world’s first field deployment combining 1.2 Tbps wavelengths with a range of 206.5 km.
Previous demonstrations managed comparable transmission rates over around 20 km, while longer experiments typically sacrificed substantial amounts of overall capacity.
The test relied exclusively on erbium-doped fiber amplifiers instead of remotely pumped amplifier systems, which are often necessary for comparable distances.
Commercial hollow-core deployments have historically struggled with signal attenuation, making long transmission distances without a repeater difficult to maintain economically.
Network cables become the next IT bottleneck
The research team addressed these limitations by using adaptive allocation techniques that independently adjust channel rates and optical power across all wavelengths.
This approach enabled hybrid transmission parameters while reducing losses associated with gas absorption effects unique to air-guided optical signals.
Engineers also developed a high-power amplifier capable of producing 33.5 dBm output while maintaining relatively uniform gain characteristics.
Since optical transmit power near 2.24 W introduces operational risks, several automatic protection systems continuously monitored link behavior throughout testing.
Protective measures included anomaly detection systems, automated shutdown functions, and alarm-triggered responses designed to avoid costly equipment failures during operation.
The timing of the experiment coincides with the growing demand for AI tools requiring unprecedented movement of information between data centers around the world.
Large GPU clusters are increasingly dependent on network performance, creating constraints that CPUs alone cannot resolve with additional computing resources.
Low-latency transmission could allow operators to distribute facilities further apart without incurring penalties that impact training and inference performance.
YOFC believes the trial marks progress toward broader deployment, even as competing hollow-core ecosystems rapidly emerge outside of Chinese supply chains.
It remains unclear whether such experiments eliminate bandwidth bottlenecks, although network limitations increasingly appear as important as computing limitations themselves.
Via Tom’s Hardware
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