On September 21, 2026, Meta unveiled Petal, a massive undersea cable stretching approximately 7,000 kilometers from the Atlantic coast of France to the United States. This cable is designed to carry data at a speed of 1 petabit per second (Pbit/s), which is equivalent to 1,000 terabits per second. Meta claims this is twice as fast as the most advanced cables of similar length, including its own earlier project, Anjana. To put this speed into perspective, it would be enough to stream music simultaneously to 75 percent of the global population. The Petal project involves three key partners: NEC, which builds and installs the system; Sumitomo Electric, which produces the fiber; and Orange, which handles the cable's landing in France and its connection to the European network. Undersea cables carry the vast majority of international internet traffic, with around 99 percent passing through them. Meta aims to capture a share of this traffic with Petal, which could potentially set a new world record for speed. Its closest competitors include Google’s Dunant cable (2020), which operates at 250 terabits per second (Tbit/s), and Meta’s own Anjana, which runs at 0.5 Pbit/s. While laboratory tests have already achieved higher speeds, such as 1.02 Pbit/s over 1,008 kilometers by Japanese researchers in 2025, Petal is the first to achieve such a high speed over a much longer distance—7,000 kilometers—using only two cores per fiber. This approach allows for industrial-scale production without increasing the fiber’s size, which is kept to the standard diameter of 125 micrometers, about the thickness of a human hair. Meta is increasingly taking control of undersea cable infrastructure, traditionally managed by telecom operators. The company has previously launched several major projects, including Marea (2017) with Microsoft, and more recently, Amitié, Anjana, and 2Africa. It is also preparing for a massive global project called Waterworth, a 50,000-kilometer cable encircling the globe. While users may not be aware of these efforts, Meta is clearly positioning itself as a major player in internet infrastructure. Unlike in the past, when such cables were built by consortia of telecom companies, today’s tech giants like Google and Meta prefer to own their own cables to ensure their services have priority access. The construction of these cables is still dominated by a small number of industrial players. The three main firms are the American SubCom, which built Google’s Dunant cable, the Japanese NEC, and the French Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), which the French government acquired 80 percent of from Nokia in late 2024. For Petal, Meta chose NEC and Sumitomo, highlighting the reliance on Japanese technology. Orange contributes to the project by managing the landing in France, but not by manufacturing the cable itself. With its 1 Pbit/s cable, Meta could set a new standard for undersea communication. However, verifying the project’s claims will take until 2029. Until then, key questions remain: What will the project cost? Where exactly will the cable land in France? And how much of its capacity will be made available to other network operators?