Peter Diamandis says the Hyperloop is coming sooner than expected. Nadine Rupp/Getty XPrize founder Peter Diamandis said that the Hyperloop could be fully operational in the United Arab Emirates before 2020 during the du CEO Forum at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Monday.

"If UAE wants, it could be operational before 2020," he said to a roundtable of reporters, the Khaleej Times first reported.

With the Hyperloop, it would be possible to travel between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which is 145 kilometers (90 miles) apart, in less than 15 minutes (14.9 to be precise), Diamandis explained. That means it would be possible to condense a two-hour drive (that's two hours without traffic) into 15 minutes.

Full scale and speed testing will occur at a number of locations starting next year, Diamandis said. The Hyperloop will be tested in a three to four kilometer (less than 2.5 mile) area.

The visionaries behind creating a Hyperloop for the United States have projected a 2020 date for when the technology would be operational.

Diamandis, who currently sits on the board of Hyperloop Technologies, gave his speech announcing the company's test plans with former SpaceX rocket engineer and Hyperloop Technologies CTO Brogan BamBrogan, according to a report from the news site Arabian Business.

"Hyperloop is about reinventing transportation,” Diamandis said at the event. “This is about the future. This is like how mobile telephone reinvented the world many times over."

A rendering of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Hyperloop. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies

Elon Musk first proposed the Hyperloop in a 2013 white paper, but left the concept as an open source project so others could commercially pursue building the system. Musk sits on the XPrize Board of Trustees.

Other people pursuing the Hyperloop include Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.

Rob Lloyd, the CEO of Hyperloop Technologies, predicts that an operational Hyperloop system will be ready in the United States in 2020.

Ahlborn's HTT will break ground in May of 2016 for a five-mile test track that will be located in Quay Valley outside of Los Angeles.