Chinese team builds first commercial ‘3-lane highway’ in optical fibre to boost capacity

China activated the world’s first three-band optical fibre communication system early this month, technology that its developers say could expand the carrying capacity of future AI networks.According to the project team, a single fibre can carry more than five times the traffic of conventional systems, while transmission capacity per core increases by nearly half.The project, completed in Qingdao in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, was jointly developed by state-owned telecommunications giant China-mobile" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="23436" data-entity-type="organization">China Mobile and its industry partners, including Hengtong Optic-Electric.The S+C+L three-band – short-wave band plus conventional communication band plus long-wave band – ultra-low loss multi-core optical cable line was put into operation in Qingdao this month. Photo: HandoutThe 35km (21.7-mile) link connects major computing facilities in the city and serves as a commercial test bed for next-generation optical networking technologies, according to a report by Shanghai Securities News on June 3.