Richard Branson has met with the newly elected Chief Minister of the Indian State of Maharashtra Shri. Uddhav Thackeray, to discuss how the privately-funded Pune-Mumbai hyperloop project would bring tremendous value to India - for the people, economy, and country.

The Chief Minister's Office confirmed the importance of the project for the State and assured that the appropriate processes will be executed to facilitate the negotiation.

Following successful visits to Ohio, Texas, and Kansas, XP-1 hit the road again, this time traveling to Columbia, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; New York; and Washington D.C.

While at Rockefeller Center during Climate Week, we announced that our system is poised to be the most energy-efficient mode of mass transportation in the world. We were also excited to unveil that we’re joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CE100 network, which brings together businesses, innovators, cities, governments, and universities committed to accelerating the transition to a circular economy.

At our stop in D.C., Representatives called for federal action now to ensure that hyperloop is deployed safely and quickly in the U.S. The excitement at the federal level continues to rise as we show federal policymakers the potential for hyperloop to transform communities across the country.

Our next key milestone in the U.S. is building a 6+ mile certification track where we test our full passenger product for operation. We sent a letter to every governor in the United States to see who was interested in building the first hyperloop certification track. We have heard back from close to half of them. More than 20 states have already expressed initial interest in the RFP process. A formal U.S. Hyperloop Certification Center will help hyperloop achieve key technological milestones, like faster speeds and turning, and political ones, like creating a national framework for safety certification.

In the Middle East, we announced the results of a strategic study commissioned to build the world’s first extended test and certification hyperloop track in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The report concluded that the Center of Excellence would create more than 124,000 high-tech local jobs, drive an estimated $4 billion increase in KSA GDP by 2030, and support the technology sector by incorporating advances in robotics and AI.

In the past few months, we’ve been able to talk with thousands of future passengers the the Dubai Motor Show, GITEX, and World Energy Congress, letting them experience what riding hyperloop would feel like first-hand.

We’re not doing this alone. We’ve built a strong network of public and private partners committed to making hyperloop the catalyst of a transportation revolution in a matter of years not decades

The experienced Independent Safety Assessors at Certifer validated the readiness of our technology to be assessed in terms of safety and confirmed that we are ready to take this historic first step – the first of its kind in the hyperloop space.

At the flagship Autodesk University conference, we launched our partnership with Autodesk to explore advanced route optimization, transportation design, and construction technology. Together, we will optimize hyperloop routing and operations – in a way that not only propels the hyperloop industry forward, but also has ancillary benefits to more traditional forms of transportation such as railway and highway route optimization.