With the explosive growth of emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, cross-border compute scheduling, and digital trade, the core demand for intercontinental high-speed connectivity continues to surge. As the foundational physical infrastructure of the optical communications industry and the global digital economy, international submarine cables serve as the strategic backbone for cross-continent compute interconnection and worldwide data flow.
The PEACE submarine cable system, invested by Hengtong and built end-to-end on a turnkey basis by its subsidiary Hengtong Marine, is the only intercontinental cable system connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe that has entered commercial service since 2022. It features the most up-to-date hardware foundation and the greatest headroom for long‑term upgrades. The total backbone bandwidth across the entire system exceeds 90 Tbps. Leveraging its flexible Open Cable architecture, the system provides high‑speed backbone transmission services to global customers, and has already been integrated with terrestrial equipment from leading global vendors such as Huawei and Infinera, with more than a dozen end‑station upgrades completed.
 Open Cable Architecture – A Benchmark for Collaborative Industry Growth
Thanks to Hengtong Marine’s industry‑leading product technologies, PEACE is one of the earliest intercontinental submarine cable systems to commercialise the Open Cable architecture at scale, achieving full decoupling between deep‑sea wet plant equipment and terrestrial terminal equipment. The system’s core subsea infrastructure, cross‑border land cables in Egypt, and power feeding and transmission systems determine the overall link stability, ultra‑low latency performance, and 25‑year service life. The DWDM/SLTE transmission terminal equipment at the terrestrial end stations, however, consists of standardised, replaceable, and upgradable upper‑layer application modules that are not tied to the cable’s core infrastructure. Through the Open Cable architecture, PEACE breaks the traditional industry constraints of single‑vendor lock‑in, closed ecosystems, and limited upgrade paths. With its large‑capacity, self‑owned infrastructure and multi‑vendor, multi‑platform compatibility, the system supports access from a wide range of terrestrial equipment suppliers. It adheres to the principles of long‑term infrastructure investment, open neutrality, and symbiotic ecosystem development, continuously driving global optical communications upgrades and the high‑quality growth of cross‑border digital industries.
Since PEACE entered full commercial service in 2024, its end‑station DWDM/SLTE equipment has been successively integrated with world‑renowned vendors including Huawei and Infinera, with over a dozen expansion cycles completed at the end stations. At the same time, PEACE effectively enables customers who purchase spectrum resources to independently light up and activate their own bandwidth services, making it one of the most open and compatible cable systems available. To date, PEACE has achieved full compatibility and stable commercial operation with DWDM/SLTE terminal platforms from multiple manufacturers, including Huawei, Nokia, Infinera, and FiberHome. It is now one of the most flexible and ecosystem‑inclusive intercontinental cable systems in the Asia‑Africa‑Europe region, capable of adapting to diverse vendor technology roadmaps and meeting the differentiated bandwidth needs of telecom operators, OTT players, and cloud/compute service providers.
Continuous Cutting‑Edge Technology Upgrades – Building a Sustainable Industry Leadership Edge
In 2024, PEACE partnered with leading end‑station equipment vendors such as Huawei and Nokia to pioneer the commercial deployment of 400Gbps, 500Gbps, and 600Gbps multi‑generation high‑speed transmission equipment along the route. The system is designed with ample technical headroom to sustainably support high‑end compute interconnection and ultra‑large‑scale data transmission requirements.
In 2025, PEACE enabled a major carrier customer to complete an end‑to‑end 400GE application deployment on the Asia‑Europe route, providing efficient carriage for large‑granularity services.
Currently, with Huawei’s end‑station DWDM transmission equipment, the PEACE Egypt overland segment has completed the deployment of a C+L‑band ultra‑wideband platform and is preparing for an expansion based on 800Gbps technology, further boosting spectral efficiency and overall system capacity.
PEACE has built an open cooperation network spanning Asia, Europe, and Africa, forming deep partnerships with major carriers such as China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Orange, Telecom Kenya, Cybernet (Pakistan), Telecom Egypt, and du (UAE). These partnerships provide solid support for PEACE’s global operations and ongoing capacity expansion.
Going forward, PEACE will continue to invest in deep‑sea digital infrastructure, steadily expand capacity and improve efficiency, iterate on advanced transmission technologies, and refine its open‑service system with multi‑vendor compatibility. We sincerely invite global communications equipment manufacturers, infrastructure operators, cloud and compute service providers, and partners across the submarine cable ecosystem to deeply engage in co‑creation, jointly explore new markets for global digital interconnection, and drive the continued high‑end, global, and sustainable development of the international submarine cable industry. Together, let us build a new, open, win‑win, and interconnected global digital ocean ecosystem.
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