Chunghwa Telecom and NTT claimed a world first in lighting an all-photonics network between the cities of Taipei and Musashino using the Japanese operator’s Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) technology.

In a joint statement, the pair noted the 3,000km link between Taiwan and Japan delivered ultra-low latency, no jitter and stable communication in about 17 milliseconds one way.

A round-trip on the 100Gb/s optical network from Chunghwa’s headquarters in Taipei to NTT’s R&D centre took 33.8 milliseconds.

The operators signed an agreement in October 2023 to use the all-photonics network technology to connect Japan and Taiwan.

NTT has pushed the IOWN initiative since 2021, with the aim of developing a high-capacity communication platform using an all-photonics network comprising silicon, edge computing and wireless distributed computing.

Intel and SK Hynix have partnered with NTT to develop and produce next-generation chips using optical technology to reduce power consumption, with the Japanese government contributing about JPY45 billion ($310.2 million) to the initiative.