Optical fiber can transfer data at the speed of light, literally. But a new technology developed by a Chinese company is cranking up even further the speed at which information can be relayed.

FiberHome Technologies, a networking and telecommunication equipment provider headquartered in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, squeezed seven optical fibers into one cable, which can transfer data five times faster than a single-fiber version. According to test data provided by FiberHome, the cable's transfer speed is a jaw-dropping 560 Terabytes per second – that is more than 10,000 Blu-ray films in a heartbeat.

Enclosing seven fibers in a cable may sound like an easy enough task, but the real effort lay in the process of minimizing crosstalk – disturbance created when telecommunication signals are in close proximity to one another.

The new cable would allow a whopping 13.5 billion people – more than twice the current total world population – to have voice conversations through a single line, according to a report published by Xinhua News Agency on Saturday.

Optical fiber is the main tool used to transfer digital data in bulk. High speed optical cables are usually used for secure Internet data transfers between cities, enabling netizens to get information regardless of location. Some Internet users are already enjoying in-home optical networks, which are usually 10 times faster than traditional Ethernet.