Беседа Анатолия Юницкого с директором uSky Tech
I would like to introduce my interlocutor. This is Alina Yavtushenko, the director of our American company uSky Tech. I'm very excited to be here with you.
It was a very important and incredible event in my life to start developing this company here in America. I'm sure that in just a few years, our transport – your transport, Anatoli – will be running on this structure, on this innovative road. Well, and ours, because you're already involved. I don't associate it only with me. You can't build an industry without a team. And there are a lot of elements here. This technology is industry-forming.
We do not just make automobiles, like, say, Henry Ford or electric cars like Ilon Musk's Tesla. We have an electric car too, on steel wheels. But we need it to run on fundamentally new roads – string rail, pre-stressed roads, which do not exist anywhere in the world, except for our test tracks, which we have built in Belarus and the UAE. We need to create a "second level" infrastructure – stations, cargo terminals, and turnouts. We need to create an automatic control system for high-speed traffic, power supply, and communications. And many other things.
I can't even comprehend the scale of it. It's not just a project. It's a huge step that needs to be taken. First of all, we're provoking it. But it's a step that, basically, America has to take. In order to open up to this transport infrastructure, which can fundamentally change the face of America… And of the world, like how the automobile has changed it. Look how it has changed the world! In terms of the capabilities, and in the niche that string transport – uSky transport – will be in the global economy, it can play an even bigger role than the automobile. Let's talk about how we're going to do this.
In order for this industry to work – and in this case I'm talking about high speeds, which is more than 300 km/h: 300, 500, 600 km/h – we have to demonstrate all the elements of this transport and infrastructure complex. If we fail to implement even one element, there will be no complex. And not just to demonstrate, not just to design, but to manufacture.
We must have the appropriate production facilities. And then we need to research and test it. This means that there must be appropriate research and scientific manpower.
To understand what is bad, what is good, how to improve, and how to develop. Then to certify all of this. To spend some time in operation – in test trials – in order to then enter the market, and make them buy this product. Different types of infrastructure products that we can offer after we have tested and demonstrated them.
We can basically create different products: both big and small. They are scalable. It seems to me that the scalability is very important here. Yes, but to get to 500 km/h, you need a 25 km test track. You have to accelerate 10 km, brake 10 km and drive 5 km at 500 km/h. So if we don't have such a track, how can we demonstrate it? With computer graphics or calculations? But calculations will never replace experimentation. We are looking for land to build this element… Complex.
But it's not just a road, there must be a base – a site where we will build stations, create a control system, and build infrastructure elements… We will even demonstrate another urbanism – linear cities. Because just as the automobile has changed America – it became a one-story America, there is such an expression – we can introduce a pedestrian America. When all the cities – linear cities – will be walkable, with transportation on top.
And these cities will be environmentally friendly and safe. So elements of that need to be demonstrated here as well. Therefore, there will be many more such infrastructure elements here. In general, it's necessary to demonstrate the production of elements and rolling stock. Yes, it will not be a large factory. But just as, say, in Belarus we have made a factory for the production of prototype vehicles, we can and should also make such a factory here on this site.
Therefore, we need about 200 hectares of land, and this is total. And a narrow strip, about 10–20 meters wide, 25 kilometers long, where the test track will be located. Yes, that's one of the most interesting challenges we have right now – finding a piece of land and coordinating its use. And, of course, it doesn't have to be too expensive. And it should not be in difficult terrain. Why should we, for example, go through the woods and make a clearing? Wouldn't it be better to go through the desert? We could go through the woods, but that would make it much more expensive… Why would we go over the mountains and make it five times more expensive? Why don't we go over flat ground? And maybe there are tracts of land like this. They may be federal, or they may belong to some state, or they may be private.
And we need to find such plots, to negotiate… And it's possible that the owner of the land will enter the project as an investor with the land and will also get a share in this technology. And this business, this niche, by the most conservative estimates, is worth at least a trillion dollars. This is by the most conservative estimates… Well, yes, once it becomes infrastructure, first of all, it will already be really competitive with long-distance trucking… No, it won't – it will be more of a contributor. We are not replacing something, but adding to it.
Like cell phone service came as an addition to wireline service. We have both. So it's not direct competition. it's assistance to other systems. So everyone will occupy their own niche. But once the efficiency is evident, I think that… It will be like that. Like the railroad: it appeared, and the carriage transport didn't go away. Horses are still there. But they occupied their own niche. Why use a horse to transport something thousands of kilometers when there is a railroad? And it's the same with us. That's why the transportation that we have won't go anywhere.
There will simply be a niche that is viable for it. And a new niche will be created. Like cellular communication, the cell phone has created a new niche. Because of what? Because I can carry it with me. I can't carry a wire with me. I can put my cell phone in my pocket. So this communication is a different kind of communication. It's the same with us.
It’s transportation but it's a different niche. It’s "second level" transportation. Yes, I just want to point out that the American company is called uSky Tech. And it even has a very short name, a very short website, usky.tech,
which partly even rhymes with such technological and startup activity in America. And we are entering this field a little bit, because, basically, in America, we are developing a high-speed direction, which we… Haven't been able to develop before, yes. Which had been developed before, but there was no such land available for it. No, it wasn't really developed. It was partially developed. Because to fully develop it, you need money. But it wasn’t tested.
No, it's not just that. In order to design, you have to tie it all to a specific piece of land. And we can't do this design because we don't have this plot of land.
After all, how is our infrastructure different from other transport infrastructures? We need to put each supporting structure with regard to the strength of the soil, with a certain distance, a certain height, so that the profile is longitudinal to the traffic and so on. To build a station at a certain height. And we have the anchoring structure, which experiences a horizontal load of thousands of tons. So it has to be tied to a specific terrain, specific soils. The track structure itself – it's pre-stressed – must be adapted to the climatic conditions. The maximum temperature, which happens once every hundred years, let's say +60, and the lowest temperature once every hundred years, let's say –10 degrees Celsius.
It's Fahrenheit here, but I'm used to Celsius. And that's the temperature range that you have to design for. We should be oriented to these winds, which are different in this area – there are tornadoes, for example. We don't have tornadoes in Belarus, and we don't have tornadoes in the Emirates. But there are tornadoes here, so it's necessary to design for these wind loads. And so on. This work should be related to a specific climatic zone.
And that is why we will tie our work to wherever there is a plot of land. And we will demonstrate that we can then build similar things in any other climatic zone. But what about other transportation solutions and complexes that have already been partially or fully implemented in other countries? Will the American company somehow be able to represent and sell them? Absolutely. Because here there will be both a need and a desire among American consumers, perhaps for the solutions that have already been demonstrated in Dubai. Absolutely. These are the urban direction and the cargo direction, where speeds are up to 150 km/h, of various types – mounted, suspended systems, continuous systems, like, for example, uTrans.
We have a lot of solutions. And they have been implemented and demonstrated on test tracks and in innovation centers in Belarus in EcoTechnoPark – this is in Maryina Gorka – and in the UAE in Sharjah. This, of course, was developed for other money, developed with the participation of other investors. And they, of course, own all the technology. It's not uSky Tech. But uSky Tech can be a seller of those technologies here in America – that is, a sales agent for what's made.
And any customer can come, say, to the Emirates and see certified systems in operation and order them. Yes, I mean uScovery and I are working together on proposing projects that you can basically start building… Of course. Even here in Atlanta, and this is where the idea came up, not ours. We have partners who work at the local university. They said, "Oh, we have a problem connecting two campuses!" So, please, we can now start negotiations with the university: let's build you a road that will solve the university's logistical problems.
And there are such problems in every city, in every large company. After all, the population of the United States is quite large – I think it's 360 million people! The territory is huge, so there could be thousands of these projects here. They have very diverse landscapes, different climates… Sure. And the cargo direction can also be deployed here. There is also industry here, so we need to transport coal, ore, construction materials, and industrial products.
That's why we can build quite a lot of purely cargo routes here. And for this we need customers, and we are looking for them. And we can rely on the solutions made in Belarus and the UAE. So uSky Tech comes to America partly together with uScovery. Yes, uScovery is also a marketing company. It doesn't own the technology. But it promotes too, so it created a subsidiary company here to promote in this market.
You have to have a local company. But that is why uSky Tech has several main tasks: to create a high-speed direction – for this we need to attract new investments, new investors in this direction. And to implement what has already been done on other platforms, and what America also needs. So the company will be a developer – this is one function, and the second function will be an agent to represent the sale of what we have done abroad – in relation to the United States. And I'm here as the General Designer, meaning I'm the designer, engineer and scientist in this case.
And what we've done, well, it probably wouldn't have been done without me. First of all, the ideas and decisions are mine. I created it there, managed it, and still manage it. America is different. The investment climate here is different. Technology has historically been implemented differently here.
We can see how breakthrough transportation and infrastructure industries were created in the USA: railroads in the 19th century, automobile construction in the 20th century – highways, helicopter construction – like Sikorsky, who is also Russian. And airplane construction – Boeing. So it was all done here, in America. And so, based on these historical analogies, it's possible to create a very large business here in America, based on high-speed transportation. That is why the United States needs it very much. A huge territory and no high-speed roads! It's kind of strange.
There are high-speed roads in France, in Spain, in Germany, in China, in Japan, but in the United States there are none. So maybe we should not run after the rest of the world, but do what they don't have and do it in a better way. This is what we can offer America. Society is now very saturated with technologies that are directly related to computers.
And this is a big problem. And we are faced with the fact that people perceive infrastructure projects as something too massive. And what I'm suggesting is that we break through that wall. And to finally start a new era in which we understand that not only computer technology, information technology, but also infrastructure technology is developing, because we really need to move around. And the costs of movement, transportation costs, economic costs – they are enormous. So you're saying let's make America great again? Well, that's basically it.
I mean, let's make it a transportation powerhouse again… No, as it was in the nineteenth and twentieth century because of transportation technology. So I want to say that those people in IT, or people who are doing digital now – the Internet and all that stuff… They forget that it all exists because there are roads that were built before them. There are automobiles that somebody produces. There are power plants. There are wires where electricity came from, and so on. If you take that away, your computer, your iPhone, your internet just disappears. So everything in the modern world is really based on infrastructure.
And I understand this as an engineer, especially as a railway engineer. But if someone doesn't understand this, it's not really our problem, it's their problem. So, the statesmen – there are statesmen in America – understand these things. We need to develop the country. And not some private small technologies, so that just someone can make money on it. Because infrastructure is connected to national problems and the economy.
And that is why, having implemented this direction here, we scale it to the whole world. Especially since America is actually a nation of immigrants, so it seems to me that… Yes, that's why Japan will have not shinkansen trains or maglev trains running in a while, but uSky high-speed transportation, which will be cheaper, safer, more economical, more "green". And so it will be the same in Germany, and France, and Spain, which have high speed roads and the US does not. But right now, you and I are in Atlanta – our first point so far.
Where do you think we will find ourselves in two or three years? Only God knows. I don't know. But I think that we should continue closer to the land where we will start building all this. Because it's wrong to build thousands of kilometers away.
It's like building a base on the Moon and flying there and doing something there – it's insanely expensive, long, and complicated. There is no need to do it. And in Minsk, for example, in Belarus… Our engineering school is in Minsk, and the test tracks are 60 kilometers away. Well, it's simple logistics, but sometimes it complicates the work.
Because sometimes you have to go back and forth over 60 kilometers to solve a problem, and then, you see, the day has just passed. That's why we should make the head office in a place close to where the innovation center will be created, i.e. where there will be land. If in desert, then we will be in the desert, and if in the mountains, then we will be in the mountains.
By the way, it all starts with notebooks, because I draw all my solutions. Well, here's one of them, for example, in notebooks like this… Yeah, it certainly looks amazing. It's not a know-how, but one of the solutions to one of our nodes… We'll take it for our merch.
It's not the most important thing, but still. So, over the years of my inventive activity, I must have scratched out hundreds of such notebooks. I want to talk about the team, because it's a big project. And so far our team is small, but…
It's a small team here. But actually, I have a team with over a thousand engineers under my belt. And I'm already interacting with this team. And thank you very much, really, they are very exciting, professional people. Sometimes it's just a delight to hear from the sidelines as you discuss some of the engineering details of a project… With the designers. Here, I also have to supervise the engineers… And people are very eager, I hear, to discuss the different options. And you really choose the best, the most effective option. And this causes some envy – the fact that people are basically doing what they like, what they are good at.
And the fact that it's not just computer technology, but that it's really engineering development. We also use artificial intelligence though, all these digital things. This is also natural, because we have an automated control system with its own artificial intelligence. But in the end, it's put at the service of people. Thank you! Thank you!
2024-07-22 18:30
