India has always long envisioned building its own hyperloop infrastructure, which will be a high-speed transportation system capable of revolutionizing the railways with airplane-like speed. As part of this quest, IIT-Madras successfully completed the country’s first hyperloop test track in Chennai.
Union railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared images of the 410-meters track on the X platform, congratulating the Indian Railways, IIT Madras, and the Avishkar Hyperloop team besides Tutr Hyperloop for achieving this feat.
Watch: Bharat’s first Hyperloop test track (410 meters) completed.
👍 Team Railways, IIT-Madras’ Avishkar Hyperloop team and TuTr (incubated startup)
📍At IIT-M discovery campus, Thaiyur pic.twitter.com/jjMxkTdvAd
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) December 5, 2024
The IIT Madras-affiliated teams—Avishkar Hyperloop, a student group, and Tutr Hyperloop, a startup incubated at the institute—promise to revolutionize the travel experience. The travel time between Chennai and Bengaluru is expected to decrease from the existing three-and-a-half hours to only 30 minutes covering the 350 km distance.
The Hyperloop operates by magnetic levitation in low-pressure tubes, which enables the transportation of passengers and cargo at speeds that are comparable to an airplane. The system is due for such energies and high technology and complies with the intent of India achieving carbon neutrality.
During May, the Ministry of Railways said that he was informed that a group of 70 students of IIT Madras who work on Hyperloop transportation, based upon which “Avishkar Hyperloop” had begun research work in the year 2017, was being made as frugal as well as scalable as could showcase the capabilities of technology available in India before the entire world.
Some of the key partners in this project have been the Union Ministry of Railways and steel giant ArcelorMittal, which has provided necessary materials and expertise to build a test track at IIT Madras’s 163-acre Discovery campus. ArcelorMittal and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India have been significant players in supporting the development of the test track.
According to ArcelorMittal, the primary objective of this project is to push forward and commercialize the Hyperloop technology towards generating a high-speed, affordable, reliable, and sustainable transport system.
The hyperloop concept, popularized by Elon Musk and SpaceX, has gained considerable attention all over the world. Avishkar Hyperloop achieved remarkable success as a team from Asia to feature in the top 10 global rankings at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2019 and later ranked among the top three teams in the world at the European Hyperloop Week 2023.
The Tutr Hyperloop is a deep-tech startup, launched in 2022 at the National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD) within IIT Madras. It builds on the work of the Avishkar team, with a focus on commercializing Hyperloop technologies.
It approached the Ministry of Railways during March 2022 for the creation of a joint effort in the development of a contactless pod prototype and in producing a one-of-a-kind Hyperloop Test Facility to be created at its Discovery Campus in Thaiyur. The cost of this project is estimated to be Rs 8.34 crore and will help to further the research into the Hyperloop by Indian Railways.
In addition, IIT Madras has proposed to institute a “Centre of Excellence for Hyperloop Technologies” that will be located at the institute, utilizing the existing Centre of Railway Research located at the MSRC building.
