India’s first Hyperloop test track completed at IIT Madras campus, railway minister shares video

Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday gave a sneak peek at India's first Hyperloop test track at the discovery campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras).

Sharing a clip of a 410-metre-long track for hyperloop technology, Vaishnaw said the test track has been completed at the research campus of IIT Madras.

“Watch: Bharat’s first Hyperloop test track (410 meters) completed,” the ministry wrote on X, giving a thumbs-up to the Railways team, the Avishkar Hyperloop team of IIT Madras, and IIT Madras-incubated deep tech start-up TuTr Hyperloop. The test track is situated about 36 km from IIT Madras’ main campus at Guindy.

The Avishkar Hyperloop team reportedly comprises 76 undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Hyperloop technology, which aims to revolutionise high-speed travel by using magnetic levitation within low-pressure tubes, has been under development at IIT Madras for several years. The project is planned in two phases, starting with an 11.5-km test track to demonstrate and certify the technology. Once successful, the track will be extended to cover approximately 100 kilometres, according to media reports.

TuTr Hyperloop, a deep-tech startup incubated at IIT Madras’ National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD), has partnered with Tata Steel to scale Hyperloop development and deployment.

The start-up has also forged a strategic partnership with Hardt Hyperloop, a European leader in the field, to ensure interoperability between Hyperloop systems in Europe and India.

Last year, Siddhant Patole, then student team lead of Team Avishkar Hyperloop, revealed ambitious plans for a 350-km Hyperloop corridor between Chennai and Bangalore. The corridor, expected to cut travel time to just 30 minutes, is envisioned for completion over the next two decades.

"Having been granted several patents on Hyperloop technology, the team is pushing itself forward to build a 350 km-long Hyperloop corridor between Chennai and Bangalore that could bring down the travel time to just 30 minutes," he had said.