Pranshu Verma

The Trump administration’s move to shut down the Open Technology Fund (OTF), an internet freedom project that helped millions of people in China access the open web, has stirred concern from lawmakers, including Republicans, who argue the nonprofit is a crucial tool to counter the rise of Beijing. OTF, launched in 2012, was intended to allow people who live under repressive regimes to circumvent restrictions and access the internet.

Scientists from universities in Sweden and Denmark transmitted nearly double an internet’s worth of data through a fiber optic cable in one second using a laser-powered chip — a world record. The chip achieved dizzying speeds by using a single laser and a specialized light-creating device to transmit data over fiber optic cables. The number of data researchers sent, roughly 1.84 petabytes, far exceeds the roughly 1 petabyte of data transmitted over the entire internet every second (A petabyte of data is roughly a million gigabytes).

Michael Pack, the Trump appointee who oversees the government’s global media operations, is moving to shut down a federally funded nonprofit that helps support internet access around the world, a decision that could limit people’s ability to get around constraints in places that tightly control internet access, like Iran and China.