Key facts
- The researchers replaced the glass core of optical fibre with air, the report said.
- The report put the transmission delay reduction at about 30 per cent.
- The report cited a 1,000km span for the comparison but named no institution behind the work.
- Conventional fibre carries light at about 200,000km per second through solid glass, the report said.
Chinese researchers have unveiled an optical fibre that replaces the solid glass core with air, a change the report says cuts data transmission delay by about 30 per cent. The report puts the figure against a 1,000km span and dates the unveiling no more precisely than its own publication stamp of November 10, 2026.
The comparison rests on the speed of light through glass. In conventional fibre, light travels at about 200,000km per second, roughly two-thirds its speed in a vacuum, because the signal passes through solid glass. The report says the gap becomes a substantial delay when large volumes of data are exchanged between computing centres hundreds or thousands of kilometres apart.
The report names no research institution, lead author or journal, and gives no details of the fibre's design, the test route or any measurement by a party other than the research team.