Virgin Hyperloop One announced that it will build a $ 500 million research center in Bobadilla. Bobadilla, a small town in southern Spain that is nestled between a 130-year-old railway and the Guadalhorce River, is not really known by much. But soon, it will have a $ 500 million technical complex dedicated to an ultra-fast and futuristic transportation system that was first conceived by Elon Musk. Virgin Hyperloop One announced on Tuesday an agreement with the state administrator of railway infrastructures to build a research and development center in the small Spanish town. It will be the first incursion of the company based in Los Angeles on the European continent. But while Bobadilla may seem an unlikely place for the future of supersonic travel, the Andalusian region is fast becoming a hotbed of high-tech activity. According to Virgin Hyperloop One, the region has more than 9,000 transport and logistics companies, as well as the second largest aerospace cluster in Spain and 20,000 employees. The company says it will seek to hire 200 to 300 high-tech workers for the staff of the new facility. The 204,000-square-foot, 19,000-square-meter center, which is planned to open in 2020, will develop, test and certify components and subsystems to continuously improve the safety and reliability of Hyperloop systems, the company says. However, it will not be the only Hyperloop facility on the continent. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, or Hyperloop TT, is currently working to build a test track in Toulouse, France, and is working with a Spanish engineering company to build a full-scale passenger pod.