Dr. Igor Kudryashov, CEO, Quantum Detection speaks exclusively with ISJ.
To start, can you share the story behind Quantum Detection – how the company began and what your role encompasses today?
Quantum Detection, a California-based company, was created with a strategic vision: To bring the most advanced AI technologies into the security screening ecosystem in a way that is operationally meaningful, globally scalable and deeply adaptable.
Before founding the company, my background in strategic leadership and finance across logistics and infrastructure sectors, together with my doctoral degree, gave me a strong understanding of how complex, high-risk systems must be managed – both technologically and economically.
In security operations, hardware capabilities were advancing rapidly, but software intelligence was not keeping pace, placing increasing pressure on human operators to interpret complex X-ray images under real-world conditions.
When we entered the market, available AI solutions were limited and often built on outdated approaches. It was clear that the industry needed a new generation of built-in, high-performance, cost-effective AI capable of operating reliably in real operational environments.
We began by developing AI for small-tunnel conventional X-ray units, before expanding to pallet scanners and high-energy portals used for trucks and containers.
As the platform matured, we broadened our scope into biometrics, loss prevention analytics and advanced human-tracking tech. This evolution allowed us to support not only individual checkpoints, but entire security ecosystems.
As CEO, I oversee the overall direction of the company – including strategy, product development, finance, strategic partnerships and relationships with manufacturers and integrators.
Our solutions are now deployed in several thousand installations worldwide, with many customers being major government agencies and large organisations responsible for managing ports, borders and critical security infrastructure across every continent – except probably Antarctica!
My financial background allows us to run the company in a disciplined way, delivering high-end, mission-grade AI solutions while maintaining reasonable and flexible pricing for large-scale deployments.
One of your key strengths is working closely with manufacturers and integrators. Why is this cooperation so strategic, and how does it strengthen your mission?
Close cooperation with manufacturers and integrators is fundamental to how we build and deploy our technology. In security – especially when dealing with critical infrastructure – AI cannot function as a standalone or bolt-on component.
It must be engineered, validated, certified and supported as part of a complete system to meet reliability, compliance and accountability expectations.
By working across a broad range of X-ray platforms – from small-tunnel units to pallet scanners and high-energy portals – we are able to design AI that performs consistently under very different operational conditions.
Our development teams work with manufacturers’ engineering groups, aligning software architecture with hardware capabilities from the earliest stages of integration.
An important advantage of this model is that it allows customers to upgrade existing fleets of X-ray scanners with a new generation of AI, rather than replacing hardware.
In close coordination with manufacturers, we develop structured upgrade programs, often integrated into maintenance and service agreements, enabling organisations to modernise their screening capabilities with reasonable and predictable pricing while maintaining OEM-level support and long-term system reliability.
This results in an integrated, one-stop-shop solution with unified support and accountability – simplified procurement, lower total cost of ownership and confidence that hardware and AI are delivered, supported and maintained as a single certified system – without disrupting operations.
Your AI solutions for X-ray security screening are a key differentiator. Could you walk us through what they do and what makes them unique in the market?
Our AI platform is highly adaptable, deeply integrated and designed to operate across all types of X-ray systems – from conventional baggage scanners to pallet-level units and high-energy cargo portals.
From the outset, our focus has been on delivering stable performance, high detection accuracy and practical usability in real operational environments.
At its core, the system combines object detection, anomaly detection and density-based analysis within a single unified engine. It can identify a range of items of interest, including firearms, knives, batteries, liquids and a broad set of customer-defined object categories.
In cargo applications, the AI can compare scanned images with declared manifests and flag discrepancies that require inspection.
Performance is a key differentiator: Our solution consistently demonstrates some of the strongest detection metrics in the market, confirmed through independent evaluations and manufacturers’ testing programs.
At the same time, this performance is delivered alongside a reasonable and flexible pricing model, allowing customers to deploy advanced AI capabilities at scale without excessive cost or rigid commercial structures.
Quantum Detection emphasises innovation and customer success as core values. How do you strike the right balance between pushing technological boundaries whilst meeting client needs?
In the security industry, innovation only matters when it delivers measurable improvements in real-world operations.
Customers depend on solutions that are not only advanced, but also stable, predictable and easy to operate. That principle guides every product decision we make.
We invest heavily in research and development, but we are disciplined about how new capabilities are introduced. Our roadmap is shaped by continuous feedback from customers across different regions and use cases, ensuring that innovation is driven by real operational challenges rather than theoretical possibilities.
At the same time, we maintain a continuous development and release cycle, allowing us to enhance performance and introduce new capabilities without disrupting existing deployments.
This balance ensures that innovation consistently translates into customer success.
What next-generation security challenges are you most eager for Quantum Detection to tackle?
One of the most pressing challenges we are focused on is high-energy cargo and vehicle screening. Compared to conventional X-ray units, these systems often produce images with lower resolution and reduced visual clarity, making interpretation more difficult – even for experienced operators.
To address this, we are implementing Vision-Language Models (VLMs) that allow our AI to analyse multiple data sources simultaneously, including X-ray images and text-based information such as customs manifests.
By correlating visual content with declared cargo data, the AI can make more informed decisions and highlight inconsistencies that would be extremely difficult to detect through image analysis alone.
At the same time, we see growing demand for better people tracking and situational awareness across large, complex facilities. Our Re-ID technology is designed to reliably track the same individual across multiple cameras and locations without relying solely on facial recognition.
The core analyses visual attributes such as clothing, body shape, movement patterns and contextual cues to create persistent identity profiles.
This technology has passed testing with a major global retail brand and is now being implemented as the core of its loss prevention system.
Beyond retail, the same Re-ID core is deployed in complex security environments, supporting investigations, incident reconstruction and real-time situational awareness while remaining compliant with privacy and regulatory requirements.
What is your long-term vision for Quantum Detection over the next five to ten years?
Our long-term vision is to establish Quantum Detection as a global reference point for AI-driven security intelligence. We aim to build a unified AI platform that supports the full spectrum of security operations – from X-ray screening to multimodal analysis.
A key part of this vision is making AI the intelligence backbone of security environments. That means systems that continuously learn, adapt to new threats and provide operators with clear, actionable insights, rather than raw data.
At the same time, we are actively engaging with agencies that define security policies, standards and operational procedures, ensuring our technologies align with – and contribute to – a cohesive global security environment.
Ultimately, we want Quantum Detection to be a long-term partner to agencies and enterprises worldwide, helping them operate safer, smarter and more efficiently as global security challenges continue to evolve.
