The American billionaire held the Not-A-Boring Tunneling Competition.

Forbes.kz repeatedly wrote about the 25-year-old Kazakh Sanzhar Taizhan (among the 30 Under 30), who works in hi-tech in the United States. Recall that in December 2022, his startup TaiSan finished the first contract to support the development of battery compartments with Vertical Aerospace, the world's largest electric aircraft manufacturer.

In the spring of 2023, the young engineer once again showed his potential. His Warwick Boring team ranked third at the Not-A-Boring Competition held by Elon Musk's The Boring Company and SpaceX.

In 2019, his first team Warwick Hyperloop built a transport capsule for the Hyperloop project in a competitive mode and reached the semifinals. It entered the Top 35 best teams in the world (out of 1600!). In 2021, Sanzhar Taizhan's new team Warwick Boring became the finalist of the Not-A–Boring Competition, where he and his colleagues created a prototype of a tunnel boring machine. Then Taizhan took fourth place.

In 2023, his team improved their own result, ranking third.

In a 2023 interview for Forbes.kz, Taizhan told that the Competition was held in Austin, Texas (in 2021 - in Las Vegas, Nevada) and only five teams reached the finals. The aim was to develop and build your own boring machine to lay up 30 meters of tunnel with 0.5 meters in diameter. This distance had to be run as quickly as possible.

“We successfully passed 90 out of 95 various technical tests, which allowed us to rank third in the Competition. I am very happy with this result.”

 Sanzhar shared his joy, "This is a great achievement for us, and it took me a long way. The Swiss and Germans, who have a budget five times larger than ours, outperformed us. This does not excuse us, because we still have room to grow. By the way, this time we were supported by our new investors - The James Dyson Foundation and Siemens."

"These are big players in the technology market," he noted.

The engineer also said that this time the new boring device was more efficient than the previous one, since it weighed less due to lighter materials. Some parts have been removed, making the design simpler, which is important when creating a boring device. Warwick Boring also used a new type of cement to build the tunnel, making it much stronger.

“We had less time to build the machine - 4 months after we learned that we made it to the finals (last time – about six months). But it was still easier for us, because we did not build it from scratch, but modified and improved the previous version. How much did it cost us this time? Unfortunately, I can't tell you the figure," Sanzhar replied.

In 2021, the Warwick Boring team needed $250 thousand to create a prototype.

Sanzhar shared a few more details about the past competitions: the US customs services detained the boring machine at the border for three days and the young engineers had only four days to fully prepare for the competition.

"It's good that before the trip to the USA, our team conducted all the necessary tests and assembled the whole machine back in England. In other words, we arrived fully prepared to demonstrate the technology," he added.

When asked about the benefits of winning the Elon Musk competition, Sanzhar replied that there are no material incentives. There is only emotional reward:

"Over the years of competition, SpaceX and The Boring Company did not give financial rewards to finalists. Moreover, in the future they have the right to use our technologies in their projects and involve our engineers. In general, we do it for the experience and love of engineering," Taizhan responded with a smile.

He added, "Let's just say, as an incentive, we were given the opportunity to visit The Boring Company. My other dream also came true - to visit an underground Hyperloop built by SpaceX. It was cool."