Hyperloop One’s Global Challenge could help speed government connections as it preps for its test in the desert

After sifting through thousands of applications since May of 2015, Hyperloop One announced today it has whittled its competitors in its Global Challenge down to 35 semifinalist teams from all over the world. According to H1, these teams come from 17 countries and represent every continent but Antarctica — 11 teams hail from the U.S., 5 from India and 4 are in the U.K.

The company has some ambitious plans to ship things and people all over the world at hyper-speed and the idea behind the challenge is to use these minds from several locations and countries to come up with a plan to connect and improve upon the hyperloop technology to help propel it throughout the globe as H1 begins to expand.

Each team puts forth a comprehensive plan with models, maps, renderings, talks and video to showcase how they would implement policies and procedures to get government and investors involved in the cause within their respective regions.

And it may prove smart to get ideas from all over the world to improve your game. On the flip of that is the prestige and recognition each team could get from local authorities and H1 itself. The company has promised eventual winners will get to “work closely with the Hyperloop One engineering and business development teams to explore project development and financing later this year,” according to a company release.

The competition will also help H1 make headway in areas it needs to connect into throughout the world. H1 is already running on full steam globally with plans to build the first commercial hyperloop transportation system in the world, going from Dubai to Abu Dhabi.

Earlier it announced a partnership with the third largest shipping port in the world DP World Group of Dubai and is currently preparing for its “Kitty Hawk moment” at Apex in North Las Vegas within the next three months, where H1 intends to conduct the first test of its technology on a 500 linear meter track, with the goal of hitting 700 mph (or the equivalent of shooting a human through a vacuum tube from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour).

H1 does have some competition in the space, the closest being its L.A. counterpart Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, but so far no one has been able to prove the machinery can get to those speeds using hardly any electricity just yet so we are eagerly waiting to see what happens in the next three months in Vegas.

As for the remaining 35 semifinalists in the challenge, those teams now go up for review by Hyperloop One’s panel of experts and will eventually get whittled down to a fraction of the current number to be announced later this year.

H1 also told TechCrunch it will be raising for the company and for each chosen team separately to build a hyperloop and work on projects to help move H1 forward in each of their respective regions.