$META UNVEILS FIRST PETABIT-SCALE TRANSATLANTIC CABLE BETWEEN U.S. AND FRANCE Meta announced Petal, a new roughly 7,000-km subsea cable designed to carry 1 petabit per second between the U.S. and France when it enters service in 2029. Meta says that is roughly 2x the capacity of today’s most advanced transoceanic cables and represents the largest single-generation capacity jump for a transoceanic system. Petal will use multi-core fiber technology across transoceanic distances, allowing more data to move through each fiber without a proportional increase in power or physical infrastructure. The system is being developed with NEC and Sumitomo Electric, while Orange will support the French landing. The project adds to Meta’s growing global network infrastructure as AI workloads drive sharply higher bandwidth requirements between data centers and regions.

Starlink is now available on Aer Lingus transatlantic flights from Shannon Airport in Ireland. “The response from our customers since launching @Starlink has been exceptionally positive. Customers are enjoying free broadband at 35k feet at speeds equivalent, if not better, than those they enjoy at home.” In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers, Aer Lingus is further progressing its Starlink rollout. The company expects 100% of its long-haul fleet to be equipped by the end of 2026.

Africa's role in the transatlantic slave trade is more complicated than the familiar narrative suggests, says Lipton Matthews. African elites shaped the trade, set the terms and extracted vast wealth from European traders.

I took a swing at the grand transatlantic spat over GDP figures, and whether Europe really is falling behind America, in this week's @TheEconomist. Read on to see if I succeeded in sneaking in enough World Cup sugar to make the PPP medicine go down.

🇪🇺🤝🇺🇸 Natural allies! A STRONGER, more trusted transatlantic partnership is essential for our mutual security and prosperity. This week in Washington D.C., we made that our PRIORITY. 📹 @PatrykJaki @AdamBielan @Assita_Kanko @GPiperea @StjepoBartulica