Hawaiki clocks new speed record with Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme

SINGAPORE, 30 May 2025 – BW Digital today announced that it has hit a major new
performance milestone, achieving data transmission of 1.2 Tb/s per wavelength over a
4,300km stretch of the Hawaiki Transpacific Cable system.

This marks a significant step towards meeting increasing demand for high-capacity, energy-
efficient transpacific connectivity amongst organisations across Australasia and the US.

The field trial leveraged Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, powered by WaveLogic 6 Extreme
(WL6e) coherent technology, running on Waveserver compact interconnect platforms, over
Ciena’s Reconfigurable Line System (RLS) submarine line terminating equipment.

Ciena’s WL6e offers a major improvement in spectral efficiency and reductions in space and
power per bit compared to the previous generation, meaning that future capacity upgrades
can be achieved more sustainably.

In commercial service since 2018, the 15,000 km Hawaiki cable provides critical datacentre-
to-datacentre connectivity between Australia, New Zealand, The Pacific and the US, playing a
pivotal role in the regional and transpacific network ecosystem.

“The trial results announced today validate our strategy to focus on innovation to offer
scalable, high-capacity solutions to our customers while constantly improving
sustainability,” said Virginie Frouin, Chief Business Officer at BW Digital.

“By integrating cutting-edge technology into our cable infrastructure, we further strengthen our digital ecosystem and create opportunities for our customers to leverage spectrum sharing and
maximise their investment as the pace of innovation increases,” she added.

“BW Digital’s WL6e trial underscores the readiness of advanced coherent optics in improving
the sustainability and operational economics of managing submarine networks today,” said
Ivan Polizzi, Regional Managing Director, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands,
Ciena.

“Our long-standing collaboration with BW Digital continues to deliver technical and
operational milestones, demonstrating the value of innovation in long-haul subsea cable
systems.”

_

About BW Digital
BW Digital is a subsidiary of BW Group, a leading global energy and maritime infrastructure
group, controlling 7 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of around
US$11 billion. Privately-owned and carrier-neutral, BW Digital develops, builds and operates digital infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region. Our vision is to create a sustainable digital
ecosystem for cloud and AI workloads by combining datacentre and connectivity assets.
BW Digital is the owner-operator of Hawaiki Transpacific Cable, a 15,000km submarine cable
connecting Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii and the US west coast.
The company is currently building its first digital campus on the Indonesian island of Batam.
The campus consists of a 120MW AI-ready data centre (NDP1), a submarine cable between
Singapore and Batam (NCC) and a terrestrial fibre network in Nongsa Digital Park (Citra
Connect).
This digital ecosystem is expected to be further expanded following integration with the in-
development Hawaiki Nui 1 Cable connecting Singapore, Indonesia, Darwin and Sydney. To
find out more, please visit www.bw-digital.com

About Ciena
Ciena is the global leader in high-speed connectivity. We build the world’s most adaptive
networks to support exponential growth in bandwidth demand. By harnessing the power of
our networking systems, components, automation software, and services, Ciena
revolutionizes data transmission and network management. With unparalleled expertise and
innovation, we empower our customers, partners, and communities to thrive in the AI era.
For updates on Ciena, follow us on LinkedIn and X, or visit the Ciena Insights
webpage and Ciena website.