Field
Transport
Horizon
σ Sigma · 2029–2035
Lead center
Autonomy & Robotics
Maturity
Developing — prototypes scaling toward deployment
Why it matters
It could connect cities in minutes with low energy per passenger, reshaping geography and reducing short-haul flights.
Where it stands
Test tracks and prototypes exist, but no full-scale system; cost, safety, and tube engineering over distance are unproven.
How ASIZ approaches it
The discovery loop, applied.
Through the Autonomy & Robotics center, ASIZ aims the discovery loop at vactrain: frontier models survey the literature and simulate the possibilities, rank the experiments most likely to resolve the open questions, and partner labs run the decisive ones — with results shared openly.