Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Indiana U Helps Launch 100 Gbps Trans-Pacific Circuit

Indiana University is leading a collaborative project with the Pacific Northwest Gigapop to establish a trans-Pacific 100 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) circuit dedicated to research and education.

The circuit, called the TransPAC-Pacific Wave, is already operational between its node in Seattle, WA, and an access point in Tokyo, Japan. Additional work on the circuit is scheduled for completion this fall and will provide direct connectivity to the Tokyo Research Exchange. The completed circuit will be 10 times faster than current connectivity rates available to researchers between the United States and Asia.

"This milestone is great news," said Greg Bell, division director at the United States Department of Energy's Energy Science Network, in a prepared statement. "The world's hardest problems can only be solved through global collaboration, and 10-gigabit links will soon be insufficient to support large-scale science."

The TransPAC-Pacific Wave is named after the two National Science Foundation-funded projects that collaborated to establish the circuit. The TransPAC4 project is led by Jennifer Schopf, director of International Networks at Indiana University, and supports backbone circuits between the United States and Asia. The Pacific Wave project is a distributed open exchange created by the Pacific Northwest Gigapop and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC). The Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the provider of the link for the TransPAC-Pacific Wave.

Schopf called the TransPAC-Pacific Wave circuit a "game changer for the world of big data research" because "researchers will now be able to share their largest databases at extremely fast speeds."

According to information from Indiana University, the TransPAC-Pacific Wave circuit will support research and education network traffic across the Pacific, as well as ultra-high-definition video distribution, real-time instrument control, telepresence, virtual reality and big data applications for research. It will also support software-defined exchange and networking, including OpenFlow, and improved interconnections between Asian research and education networks and their counterparts in the United States.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Hootsuite

    Beyond the Feed: How Higher Ed Turns Social Media Into a Measurable Enrollment Engine

    More than half of prospective students research programs on social media before visiting a university website, and nearly half will skip applying to a school that looks inactive online. Hootsuite, the all-in-one social OS platform trusted by more than 2,000 higher education institutions, helps campus teams turn everyday posts into measurable outcomes, from applications to alumni giving.

  • A glowing digital brain with neural connections and light trails

    AI Giants Warn It May Be Time to Slow Down

    For years, leaders in the artificial intelligence industry have warned that increasingly capable AI systems could eventually become dangerous, all the while continuing to race to build them. Now, their sentiments have changed.

  • lock icons, shields, and glowing data paths

    Research Studies Suggest AI Is Accelerating Familiar Cyber Attacks

    Research released around the recent Black Hat USA 2026 conference suggests that artificial intelligence is increasing the speed and scale of cybersecurity activity without replacing the attack methods defenders already face.

  • digital brain with network connections

    Microsoft Moving to Internally Developed AI Models in Office Apps

    Microsoft is reportedly using its own in-house artificial intelligence models to handle some workloads in Excel and Outlook, offering new evidence that the company is moving its AI strategy beyond model development and into large-scale cost reduction.