With the world population topping eight billion for the first time, “Santa is flying faster than ever; we estimate he’s traveling over Mach 7 this year” — seven times the speed of sound, more than a mile per second — “to hit all those datapoints around the world in one night,” says Adam Gorski, aerospace engineer for Exton-based Ansys Government Initiatives.

AGI, a flight-simulation subsidiary of Ansys Inc., is one of two Philadelphia-area tech companies that cooperate to track Santa Claus’ Christmas Eve flights in real time, using data collected by NORAD, the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command.

NORAD collects data from transmitters in many places, including a convenient Santa Claus sled beacon — “Rudolph’s red nose,” Gorski added.

“Anything that fast is hypersonic — you see it, long before you hear it. You need special technology to go that fast,” the kind that propels satellites into orbit but doesn’t yet power commercial aircraft, he added.

“Also, magic reindeer. They go that fast.”

A sister company, Center City-based Cesium, builds the user-friendly dashboard software that makes Santa easier to track, along with systems used by gamers and other participants in the emerging virtual-reality networks known as the metaverse.

Since the 1960s, NORAD has tracked planes, satellites, and other flying objects over North America, and made the data publicly available, making it easier for flight planners to avoid accidents and…