Originally put forward by Musk in 2013, the Hyperloop concept has been the subject of equal parts excitement and skepticism. It essentially places travelers in pods and whisks them away in above-ground tubes at almost the speed of sound.

This has piqued the interest of Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum, a Swiss company that has toiled in the art of sucking gases out of spaces for more than one hundred years. In the past it has put its vacuum technologies to use in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and high-performance parts for Aston Martins and Ferraris. 

"As a pioneer of vacuum technology, this is a very special obligation for us, and our staff welcomes this challenge especially," explains Dr. Martin Fuellenbach, CEO of Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum. "We contribute in delivering our extensive expertise, as well as the necessary calculations and technology to create and maintain the partial vacuum that is needed to reach such high speeds."