ESnet has upgraded its transatlantic networking connection between the United States and Europe to four 100 gigabits-per-second links.

These links give researchers at America’s national laboratories and universities ultra-fast access to scientific data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and other research sites in Europe.

The original configuration that went into service in December 2014 consisted of three 100 Gbps and one 40 Gbps links. Since December 2014, the LHC traffic being carried by ESnet alone has grown nearly 1600%, from 1.7 Petabytes per month in January 2015, to nearly 30 Petabytes per month in August 2017.

The four new connections link peering points in New York City and London, Boston and Amsterdam, New York and London, and Washington, D.C. and CERN in Switzerland. The contracts are with three different telecom carriers, ESnet said.

“Our initial approach was to build in redundancy in terms of both infrastructure and vendors and the past three years proved the validity of that idea,” said ESnet director Inder Monga. “So, we stuck with those design principles while upgrading the fourth link to 100G.”

Furthermore, ESnet announced a collaboration with Indiana University funded by the National Science Foundation with its Networks for European, American and African Research (NEAAR) award within the International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program. The goal of NEAAR is to make science data from Africa, such as that collected by the square kilometer array, and Europe, like data from CERN’s LHC, available to a broader research community.

With the upgrade, the total transatlantic capacity for research and education networks is now 800 Gbps, continuing the close collaboration between the seven partners providing transatlantic connectivity under the broader umbrella of the Global Network Architecture Initiative (GNA).