Ultra-high speed Hyperloop comes to Guizhou Province

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), a company made famous by Tesla’s Elon Musk, has signed an agreement with the Tongren Transportation & Tourism Group in Southwest China’s Guizhou Province, the Global Times learned from the Tongren municipal government.

Hyperloop will build a 10-kilometer test line in Tongren, a city in Guizhou, providing technology, equipment and engineering expertise to its Chinese partner, which will construct the line and deal with regulatory and other domestic issues.

“China leads the world in high-speed rail, and they are looking for a more efficient solution in Hyperloop,” said Bibop Gresta, the chairman of HTT.

Sang Baichuan, director of the Institute of International Business at the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times Thursday the HTT case just proves that many US companies are eager to participate in the China-proposed Belt and Road [B&R] initiative, but are unable to do so due to the US government strategy.

“Projects related with the B&R initiative are beneficial for all the world, and as China is opening up its markets further every day, we welcome companies from all over the world to participate in infrastructure construction,” Sang noted.

Guizhou is one of the poorest provinces of China, but it has been recently developing its high-technology industry, housing data centers of many leading internet companies.

The Hyperloop will help open up the development of the inland region, said Tongren Mayor Chen Shaorong.

Hyperloop is set to play a bigger role in the B&R initiative,

connecting the region to the rest of the world, said Disk Ahlborn, CEO of HTT.

Hyperloop lines are railways that run inside vacuum tunnels, which makes it possible for them to run at speeds of more than 1,000 kilometers per hour, acper cording to a paper published by Elon Musk in 2013. While Musk himself is not involved in the company, Hyperloop has gathattention. ered worldwide attention

While originally envisioned to be built in the US state of Calis fornia, HTT has been exploring projects in other countries such as the United Arab Emirates and now China, archdaily.com reported in April.