North Carolina's high-tech Research Triangle may get even more advanced in years to come.

The Tar Heel State announced on Friday that it is exploring options to bring Virgin Hyperloop One technology to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill corridor, which has grown into a hub for technology companies and research universities.

"You can literally begin to start thinking about the cities like they're metro stops," Jay Walder, the CEO of Virgin Hyperloop One, told Cheddar. North Carolina's inquiry makes it the ninth state to explore hyperloop as a potential regional transportation system.

"We have stopped our imagination somewhere around 1956, which is when the interstate highway system was created, and it is time to restart our imagination," Walder said.

Virgin Hyperloop One, which was developed by Virgin founder Richard Branson, is the first company to successfully operate a full-scale hyperloop vehicle system, which uses electric propulsion and electromagnetic levitation in depressurized tubes to propel vehicles at hundreds of miles per hour.

"Imagine being in a super-fast vehicle that is completely smooth, no turbulence moving at airline speed," Walder added.

Although still in its early stages, hyperloop technology is proving to be a far faster, safer, and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional forms of transportation, according to the company.

"The Research Triangle area is uniquely positioned from a technology focus, spatial layout, and favorable mid-East Coast location to benefit from a hyperloop travel solution that could quickly link America's R&D cities of Raleigh and Durham with each other and with neighboring regions in the southeast and mid-Atlantic," Joe Milazzo II, the executive director of North Carolina's Regional Transportation Alliance, said in a statement.

Trips between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill are expected to be under 10 minutes, according Virgin Hyperloop One's initial estimates.

"You can take it a step further — Raleigh-Durham to Washington DC it just over 35 minutes," Walder told Cheddar.

<i>Cheddar</i>
Share:
More In Technology
A Closer Look at the Gaming Sector and its Future in the Metaverse
The gaming industry has been under the spotlight so far this year following some big mergers and acquisitions. This week featured earnings of three major gaming companies, but also Meta and for the latter, things are not doing too hot. Joining Cheddar News to break it all down was Kenny Rosenblatt, President and Co-Founder of Arkadium.
Amazon Strong Growth Attributed to the Cloud Despite Retail Headwinds
While it was a volatile week in tech as Meta experienced the biggest one-day drop in the history of the U.S. stock market, industry giant Amazon reported 40 percent growth — largely on the strength of the cloud. Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, joined Cheddar News to break down how the e-commerce company stock managed to pop despite headwinds against its core retail business. "It's all about cloud because of sum of the parts, you could argue, amazon could be $3,500/$4,000 stock just based on cloud," he said. Ives also addressed the apparent the differing impact of Apple iOS changes on Facebook and Snapchat.
Investors May Be Wary of Ford Due to Ongoing Supply Chain Issues
Following Ford's earnings miss, the stock price dropped despite a bullish outlook from the auto giant. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst with ISeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to break down why investors may not be sold on the carmaker because of the ongoing factor of supply constraints. "The product is not an issue. There's really good product coming from them, including the electric vehicle side, and the demand is not an issue. There's plenty of demand, but nobody really has a solid grasp on when we're going to get past the supply chain issue," said Brauer.
Pinterest Reports Strong Q4 Earnings Beat
Image-sharing app Pinterest reported big beats on its Q4 earnings for the top and bottom lines. The social platform surprised investors after seeing a decline in users while earnings and revenue were much higher than expected.
Load More