Future FinTech Group Inc. (FTFT.US), a leading comprehensive financial and digital technology service provider, announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary has signed a "Skyline Hyperloop Project Cooperation Agreement" with Innovatelab LLC, obtaining exclusive global licensing rights to revolutionary vacuum-wrapped train hyperloop technology. Under the agreement, Future FinTech Group Inc. holds a 55% stake in the new joint venture, while the partner holds 45%. Both parties will combine their respective advantages in intellectual property, scientific research, R&D, finance, and industrial project development to jointly advance this project. Future FinTech Group Inc. will be responsible for investment and external financing, while the partner will handle technology and R&D.
This technology represents an ultra-high-speed ground transportation system capable of reaching speeds of over 1,000 kilometers per hour. The pipeline operates as an open system that doesn't require sealing, with trains running in a vacuum-wrapped state. It serves as the most effective solution to overcome the low-vacuum pipeline drag reduction technology bottleneck of Hyperloop, potentially accelerating and redefining the future development direction of hyperloop and rail transportation.
The successful implementation of this technology will establish world-leading competitiveness in the rail transportation industry through its high-speed, low-cost, and safer operational characteristics, creating trillion-level market demand and driving rapid development of related industries.
Elon Musk proposed the Hyperloop concept in 2013, with vacuum steel tube transportation as its theoretical core. By combining magnetic levitation technology, low-vacuum pipelines, and linear motor drive systems, it aimed to achieve near-sonic passenger and freight transportation. Multiple countries and regions have since pursued development, including China's Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation. However, due to the need to maintain low-vacuum conditions throughout the entire pipeline, this system's development has encountered various technical challenges that remain unsolved. The main technical bottlenecks include safety operational risks from massive energy accumulation in fully sealed low-vacuum pipelines, construction difficulties, thermal expansion and contraction connection challenges, and passenger evacuation problems during failures. Hyperloop One, the primary developer of this project based in Los Angeles, has ceased operations due to technical obstacles.
Unlike Hyperloop, this technology's theoretical core is simplified to "steel tube + mobile vacuum transportation," wrapping operating trains with moving vacuum within pipelines, allowing vacuum to move with the train. This enables trains to operate at low air resistance and near-aircraft speeds in an open pipeline environment. Since the open pipeline maintains atmospheric pressure, there's no energy accumulation, fundamentally solving the systemic risks and challenges caused by massive energy accumulation in full-length low-vacuum pipelines.
The system will also employ artificial intelligence to develop primary control systems, achieving ultra-high-speed, low-cost, safe, and comfortable operation, truly bringing aviation-speed ground transportation for both passenger and freight flows, providing a more effective solution for successful Hyperloop implementation.
The technology inventor, Dr. Liu Mawen, is an international authority in vacuum transportation physics, graduated from Dartmouth College with over 20 years of cutting-edge research experience. The technology received a U.S. Patent Office invention patent on January 11, 2022 (Patent No.: US11,220,278 B2).
Dr. Liu Mawen stated, "This technology simplifies Hyperloop's vacuum steel tube transportation to steel tube transportation, significantly reducing development and implementation cycles and costs, improving technical feasibility, and representing the best solution to current Hyperloop technical bottlenecks. Project development and implementation will include four phases: model testing, system integration, performance limits, and commercial viability operations. The project has currently completed important work in model testing including static vacuum wrapping experiments, 200-meter motion vacuum wrapping experiments, and computer simulation experiments, all achieving expected results. We believe this innovation is not only a breakthrough in existing low-vacuum ultra-high-speed transportation science, but also the key to making hyperloop truly safe, scalable, and commercially viable."
FTFT CEO Mr. Li Hu commented, "Existing Chinese high-speed rail has demonstrated advantages in large transport capacity, comfort and convenience, low energy consumption, high speed, good safety, and high punctuality rates. We believe Dr. Liu's invention is not only a leap forward from current high-speed rail technology, but also the key to opening the era of safe, economical, and accessible 'ground flights.' We welcome global cooperation from governments, enterprises, and individuals with technology, funding, and ideals. We particularly welcome Mr. Elon Musk and his team to verify or participate in this technology! FTFT will fully promote this revolutionary technology to take its first commercial step within the next two years!" (Project website: http://skyline-express.tech)
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