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Japan breaks internet speed record with mind-blowing 1.02 petabits per second - Dexerto

A new internet speed record has been set, and it’s fast enough to download massive games like Warzone in less time than it takes to blink.

www.dexerto.com

The record was set by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and Sumitomo Electric, who announced the achievement in late May 2025. But how fast is .02 petabits per second, I hear you cry? Well, as Seasia pointed out, you could download the entire Netflix library in under a second.

With speeds this fast, you'd also be able to download meaty 150 GB games like Warzone in the blink of an eye – something most of us could only dream of. Having to wait patiently for hefty updates and launch day installations would instantly be a thing of the past, but how exactly was such speed achieved?

 

[AJUMP23]

How big is the cable?

 

[The Cockatrice]

How big is the cable?

 

[Baemono]

Japan breaks internet speed record with mind-blowing 1.02 petabits per second - Dexerto

A new internet speed record has been set, and it’s fast enough to download massive games like Warzone in less time than it takes to blink.

www.dexerto.com

We can hope Nintendo servers will be a bit better now

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Expressing my envy through my pitiful 30Mb/s connection.

 

[Hookshot]

Think of all the adverts we could view with this.

 

[newtypepilot]

pointless because many JP games are peer to peer

 

[jshackles]

This is a) a non-commercial proof of concept and b) designed for network backhaul applications (data centers, cell towers, etc.) and not something that would be delivered to your house. "You could download all of Netflix in under a second" actually just means "we will be able to serve regular 1080p Netflix streams to millions of people at once from a single data center", and even then it'll be years or decades before this type of thing will become standardized, if ever.

Cool stuff, and not trying to undercut the value of their work, but these articles always make me laugh because journalists are just trying to put these breakthroughs in terms the "regular Joe" would understand, and it's something that the "regular Joe" was never meant to understand.

 

[jshackles]

How big is the cable?

From the article:

The team used a special 19-core fiber optic cable instead of one, which allowed them to transmit data in multiple parallel streams across 1,800 kilometers.

So this would still be much smaller than you're probably thinking. Each fiber core would be 9μm (microns) in size (assuming they used the current ISO/IEC 11801 OS2 standard, the article did not specify). Because they went 1,800 kilometers, they would have used an outdoor jacketed cable, like this:

(this is a depiction of a standard 12-core fiber optic cable, but the fiber cores themselves are a very small part of this so adding 7 more cores wouldn't really increase the diameter of the cable much). The jacket and weatherproofing is what makes the cable bulky, if they did this in an indoor / lab setting, then it could theoretically be done with a cable that's as thick as a few strands of human hair.

However, in this configuration, the cable itself would be about 10–12 millimeters in diameter. That's about twice as big around as your standard Ethernet or HDMI cable.

 

[near]

I know that's fast because I've never heard of the word petabit.

 

[Salz01]

What happened did they release a new Waifu simulator?

 

[cormack12]

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Japan breaks internet speed record with mind-blowing 1.02 petabits per second - Dexerto

A new internet speed record has been set, and it’s fast enough to download massive games like Warzone in less time than it takes to blink.

www.dexerto.com

Praise Japan

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Expressing my envy through my pitiful 30Mb/s connection.

Where you live friend?

 

[Plies]

How big is the cable?

If it's Japanese, probably not that big.

 

[sono]

Can I upgrade

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Where you live friemd?

In Italy. But hey, there is gigabit fiber here. The houses 100m from here get it. It's just the peripheral group of houses where I live that won't get the upgrade to FTTH for some reason, so I'm stuck with FTTC speeds for the foreseeable future.

 

[SlimySnake]

I already have a gig internet i get for $65 which isnt bad considering 1Mbps cable was $50 in 2000.

I can download almost every game in under 10 minutes but because my wifi connection cuts it down to 500, i have to wait 20-25 minutes. not bad tbh. Right now I am pissed that the bitrate on netflix, vudu and other apps is pure trash. you are basically getting bluray quality visuals.

Also, sports are still doing 1080p streams with shit bitrate instead of 4k despite charging premium for their subscriptions. I was watching the same vids at the same quality when i had a 100 Mbps connection. So i am basically not even using my fancy internet unless im downloading some games a bit faster.

 

[ssringo]

All that data transferred and I still have to wait for my slow ssd to write it all.

When "instant" still isn't fast enough

 

[Magic Carpet]

Thats great and all but can they lower the monthly internet bill?
My local ISP by the kind grace of their hearts upped my speed from 400Mbit to 500 Mbit for no extra cost.
But I would have liked it better if they had simply reduced the bill instead.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I already have a gig internet i get for $65 which isnt bad considering 1Mbps cable was $50 in 2000.

I can download almost every game in under 10 minutes but because my wifi connection cuts it down to 500, i have to wait 20-25 minutes. not bad tbh. Right now I am pissed that the bitrate on netflix, vudu and other apps is pure trash. you are basically getting bluray quality visuals.

Also, sports are still doing 1080p streams with shit bitrate instead of 4k despite charging premium for their subscriptions. I was watching the same vids at the same quality when i had a 100 Mbps connection. So i am basically not even using my fancy internet unless im downloading some games a bit faster.

Agreed with all that you said.

My company started doing 3 gig and in all honesty at most times I can't tell much of a difference from when it was just 1 gig

 

[Avid Reading Horse]

See what happens when your society follows Bushido?

 

[lughnasadh123]

Weren't Petabits in the Epstein files?

 

[Kenneth Haight]

We upgrading to 8K porn

 

[mitch1971]

Download all of Netflix in a second...

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

So now their old 90s looking website will load even faster

 

[LordCBH]

Somehow, Comcast will use this as an excuse to raise my monthly rate.

 

[Coconutt]

Imagine all the porn you can watch simultaneously with that kind of speed, all this power in the palm of one's hand.

 

[nkarafo]

When the bottleneck of your download speed isn't the internet connection but your storage device.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

Imagine all the porn you can watch simultaneously with that kind of speed, all this power in the palm of one's hand.

 

[Esca]

Hope this is fast enough to download a car finally

 

[Joramun]

Great achievement. But overall, Japan is in a huge digital lag.

If you want to venture out and make money start a cyber security consulting firm/ digital transformation firm in Japan.

You will have an abundance of work.

Insight 2025/2026 - Japan’s Digital Lag

For a country with a reputation for the high-tech, Japan is surprisingly lagging in digital transformation. In 2024, it ranked 31st in digital competitiveness, behind most advanced economies. Why?

www.channelnewsasia.com

Japan’s IT Sector Struggles to Modernize as Legacy Systems and Risk-Averse Culture Hold It Back

Japan’s IT sector lags behind due to outdated legacy systems, a risk-averse corporate culture, and a lack of software innovation.

www.ctol.digital