China has completed what it calls the world’s first bidirectional real-time transmission verification over a 1,000-kilometer hollow-core fiber link, the Global Times reported on November 8, citing China’s Central Television (CCTV). The trial ran over a 1,007.48-kilometer link and sent 64 Tbps in each direction at the same time, with one-way transmission over 1,000 kilometers taking 3.43 milliseconds, according to the report.
China Telecom’s research institute, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable (YOFC) and ZTE ran the trial on a single fiber in both directions, with 800Gb/s per wavelength across the extended C+L band and a total capacity of 128Tb/s, Sina Finance reported on November 2. By our arithmetic, 128Tb/s at 800Gb/s per wavelength is 160 wavelength channels.
Business Pill · Sovereign AI
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on sovereign AI, why nations build their own AI capacity. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss this trial.
The key insight: China Telecom’s research institute, YOFC and ZTE sent 64 Tbps in each direction over a 1,007.48-kilometer hollow-core fiber link, 128Tb/s in total, with one-way transmission over 1,000 kilometers taking 3.43 milliseconds, according to CCTV via the Global Times and Sina Finance. China Telecom’s Huo Xiaoli said hollow-core fiber can reduce latency by 30 percent, and YOFC’s Wang Ruichun tied the work to AI training and inference across data centers. By our arithmetic, the trial used 160 wavelength channels.
Most optical fiber in use today is solid-core, with signals traveling through a silica glass core; hollow-core fiber carries signals mainly through an air-filled channel, the Global Times report said. The experiment “achieved for the first time the simultaneous bidirectional transmission of 64 Tbps signals in each direction”, the report said, which it equated to the upload and download of 160 4K movies per second at 50 GB each.
The technology doubles the transmission capacity and increases the transmission distance by 60 percent compared with the best-performing solid-core fibers currently available, according to the report. Relative to previous hollow-core trials of the same type, the distance was extended by a factor of 50, the report said.
Sina Finance reported that each span of the link kept at least 3dB of loss margin and at least 3dB of optical signal-to-noise ratio margin, and that the team used commercial amplifiers with normal output power rather than high-power amplifiers. The team removed gas-line absorption from carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide across the extended C+L band during fiber manufacturing, according to the same report.
One-way signal time over 1,000 km: 3.43 ms in the hollow-core trial (reported) vs about 4.9 ms implied for solid-core fiber by our arithmetic from China Telecom’s stated 30% latency cut (3.43 / 0.7). 128 Tb/s at 800 Gb/s per wavelength = 160 channels (our arithmetic). Data: CCTV via Global Times (8 Nov 2026); Sina Finance (2 Nov 2026).
What Was Posted on X
JUST IN: China completes the world’s first 1,000-km bidirectional fiber transmission
Kalshi posted on 8 November, to about 17,600 views, that China completed the world’s first 1,000-km bidirectional fiber transmission. A Global Times report, citing CCTV, describes a hollow-core fiber verification over 1,007.48 kilometers with 64 Tbps in each direction.
JUST IN: Chinese researchers claim a world record for internet data transmission, reaching speeds fast enough to download over 20,000 4K movies in just one second.
Polymarket posted on 9 November, to about 41,000 views, that Chinese researchers claim a world record for internet data transmission, fast enough to download over 20,000 4K movies in one second. That framing matches a separate claim Tom’s Hardware reported on 26 October, a Chinese team’s 3.2 petabits-per-second real-time optical fiber record, not the 64 Tbps hollow-fiber test this piece covers. By our arithmetic, 3.2 petabits a second is 400 terabytes a second, or about 20 GB per film across 20,000 films.
What the Companies Say About AI
Huo Xiaoli, chief expert of next-generation information and communication at China Telecom, said hollow-core fiber transmits signals through gas, which “can reduce latency by 30 percent”, the Global Times reported. Huo said the result reserves “key technology for the construction of computing power networks”.
Wang Ruichun, chief scientist of YOFC, said the technology will better serve the national computing power strategy, the report said. Wang said training and inference of large models require coordinated networking across data centers, and that “In AI data centers, the requirements for latency are extremely stringent, and the rate of optical connectivity and optical transmission is also very important”.
By our arithmetic, if 3.43 milliseconds reflects the 30 percent latency reduction Huo describes, the same 1,000 kilometers on solid-core fiber would take about 4.9 milliseconds. That is an implied figure from the two reported numbers, not one the report states.
The technology is already used in a cross-border commercial hollow-core fiber financial line between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and more than 10 commercial and pilot projects have been deployed in Asia, Europe and other regions, CCTV reported, according to the Global Times.
The Structural Read
As we read the Global Times report, the trial is framed as plumbing for computing power networks rather than as a consumer broadband upgrade.
As we read the Sina Finance report, the engineering choices, commercial amplifiers and standard margins, were made to show the fiber can reuse existing equipment.
As we read both reports, the link between remote power-rich campuses and the places that use their compute is the part of China’s AI buildout this trial addresses, though neither report names the route.
Wang Ruichun, chief scientist of YOFC, as reported by the Global Times
“In AI data centers, the requirements for latency are extremely stringent, and the rate of optical connectivity and optical transmission is also very important”
Three Implications
FOR CHINA’S AI CAMPUSES Our series reports Galaxy in Ulanqab delivered its first 120MW within a year, per SemiAnalysis; the Global Times says hollow-core fiber can support computing power networks.
FOR FIBER MAKERS The Global Times reports the technology is in a Shenzhen to Hong Kong financial line and more than 10 commercial and pilot projects.
FOR THE NUMBERS TO WATCH The reports give 64 Tbps each way, 3.43 milliseconds over 1,000 kilometers, and a 30 percent latency cut per China Telecom’s Huo Xiaoli.
The essay says “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.”
As we read it, if electrons decide where campuses go, as with Galaxy’s wind in Inner Mongolia, links like this trial decide how far those campuses can sit from the users of their compute. The essay does not discuss hollow-core fiber.
What Is Not Established
The reports describe a transmission verification, not a commercial long-haul route, and neither names the cities at each end of the 1,007.48-kilometer link or a deployment date for AI data center traffic. The world-first and record claims are the reports’ own; we did not find an independent laboratory or journal confirmation. Neither report gives a cost per kilometer for hollow-core fiber.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
China Telecom’s research institute, YOFC and ZTE sent 64 Tbps in each direction over a 1,007.48-kilometer hollow-core fiber link, with a total of 128Tb/s and 3.43 milliseconds one way over 1,000 kilometers, according to CCTV via the Global Times and Sina Finance. China Telecom’s Huo Xiaoli said hollow-core fiber can reduce latency by 30 percent, and YOFC’s Wang Ruichun tied the work to cross-data-center AI training and inference. By our arithmetic, the trial used 160 wavelength channels.
A note on sourcing. The distance, capacity, latency, comparison figures and the Huo Xiaoli and Wang Ruichun remarks are from the Global Times’ 8 November 2026 report of CCTV News, which we read in full. The participating companies, the per-wavelength rate, the 128Tb/s total and the margin and amplifier details are from Sina Finance’s 2 November 2026 report in Chinese, which we read in full and translated. The 160-channel and 4.9-millisecond figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
