The Japanese government is putting some big brains together to solve a question you may have thought was the stuff of Blade Runner dreams: How do we get flying cars into the skies within the next ten years? The government has convened a group of 21 businesses and organizations to draw up a road map that will transform the flying car from sci-fi fantasy to traffic-crushing reality, Bloomberg reports.

A number of major international corporations, including Boeing, Airbus, and Uber, have been invited, along with homegrown players like ANA, Japan Airlines, and Cartivator, a flying car start-up backed by Toyota that hopes to use a flying car to light the Olympic torch at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, because why not? With backing from the Japanese trade ministry, the group will begin putting a plan together next week, which they hope will see flying cars over Tokyo in the next ten years.

While a number of private companies have put forward their own flying car concepts over the last few years, the involvement of the government could be a major boon to the project, as regulations are perhaps the biggest hurdle to introducing the new technology. (Major questions that need answering include, "Is it a plane? Is it a car? Is it both, in which case what rules does it follow?") “The Japanese government will provide appropriate support to help realize the concept of flying cars, such as creation of acceptable rules,” the ministry said in a statement shared with Bloomberg.

Along with self-driving cars, flying cars are considered next-generation technology that could solve issues like traffic congestion and pollution. It's not so much a matter of if, but when and where. Uber has put big money behind the technology (Japan could be the government partner it's been waiting for), and everyone from Rolls-Royce to Airbus are working on prototypes of their own. Last month it emerged that Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet, Google's parent company, is backing not one but three different flying car concepts, just as yet another company, Terrafugia, revealed a prototype of a flying car that you could own by 2019.

Dubai, ever the land of pipe dreams made real, has less-than-secret ambition to fill its skies with flying drone taxis; and back in February in China, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturer Ehang released footage of its employees zipping around in working prototypes of its own quadcopter.

U.S., China, U.A.E., take notice: A new challenger has stepped into the ring.