Europe – AI for Border & Infrastructure Security

AI is no longer a pilot project tucked away in an innovation lab; it is the backbone of how European nations watch borders, protect airports, and keep vital infrastructure running safely. With geopolitical pressures rising and complex threats spanning physical and digital domains, Europe’s security posture is being rewritten by software that can see sooner, decide faster, and act more precisely. This piece surveys three pivotal fronts—AI for airport security screening, NATO-level collaboration, and smart surveillance in urban centres—through the lens of five influential players: Helsing (Germany), Thales Group (France), Safran Electronics & Defense (France), QinetiQ (UK), and Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity (Germany).

Why AI—and why now?

European border and infrastructure security faces a paradox of abundance: sensors everywhere, data everywhere, operators stretched thin. AI tackles that overload by turning torrents of video, radar, access logs and network telemetry into triaged, decision-ready signals. The immediate gains are pragmatic—fewer false alarms, shorter queues, quicker responses—while the strategic prize is a more resilient, interoperable security fabric spanning nations, agencies and critical sites.

1) AI for Airport Security Screening: speed without compromise

Airports epitomise the security-throughput trade-off. Passengers demand frictionless journeys; authorities cannot afford to miss a single threat. AI is closing that gap across three layers of the airport stack:

a) Passenger screening and flow
Modern millimetre-wave body scanners and walkthrough systems increasingly rely on AI-assisted detection to spot anomalies and automatically localise them for secondary screening. The effect: fewer manual checks, fewer intrusive pat-downs, and more consistent outcomes across shifts and terminals.

• Rohde & Schwarz brings deep radio-frequency engineering into security. Its advanced people-screening systems use intelligent image interpretation to reduce false alarms and improve detection of non-metallic threats, supporting higher throughput with a consistent security baseline.

• Thales Group, after integrating digital identity and biometrics capabilities, is helping airports knit identity management into security flows. AI-enabled face verification at e-Gates, document authentication, and watch-list checks now blend security with passenger convenience, reducing bottlenecks while maintaining rigorous controls.

b) Cabin baggage and hold baggage
AI-driven image analysis on 3D computed tomography (CT) scans is transforming baggage screening. Algorithms flag suspicious shapes and materials, prioritise trays for human review, and in some cases support relaxed divestment rules(e.g., leaving liquids and electronics in bags) without degrading security.

• Safran Electronics & Defense contributes on the sensing side with ruggedised optronics, embedded computing and edge AI know-how that airports can apply beyond lanes—perimeter towers, apron surveillance and airside access points—ensuring coherent detection logic across the whole field of operations.

c) Airside perimeter and runway safety
Runway incursions, foreign object debris (FOD) and drone intrusions are persistent threats. AI enhances fixed and mobile sensors to classify hazards in real time and to cue the right response unit without flooding the control room.

• QinetiQ draws on a heritage of airfield safety and counter-UAS integration. Its sensor fusion, open standards and autonomy toolkits help security teams stitch radars, EO/IR cameras and RF detectors into a single, cue-to-action picture, scaling from one airport to multi-airport networks.

What good looks like in airports

• Auto-classification first, human adjudication second

• Throughput raised without raising risk

• One data model across landside, airside and perimeter

• Continuous tuning of algorithms based on operator feedback and post-incident learning

2) NATO-Level AI Collaboration: interoperability by design

Borders don’t stop threats; networks do. Europe’s security reality is multinational, and that makes interoperability the killer feature. AI elevates collaboration when nations can share not just data, but insight—securely, quickly and with policy controls intact.

Common operating pictures, local control
NATO partners increasingly aim for federated architectures: each nation keeps sovereignty over data while contributing model outputs—detections, confidence scores, track IDs—to a shared picture. That approach respects privacy, classification and legal frameworks, yet delivers the benefits of scale: more sensors, more context, better early warning.

• Helsing positions itself as a “sovereign AI” partner for democracies, specialising in perception, electronic warfare awareness and decision support that can plug into allied networks without forcing common hardware. Its software-first stance fits the need to field capability quickly across mixed fleets.

• Thales brings defence-grade sensor fusion, explainable AI and cybersecurity to joint command environments. Its emphasis on human-machine teaming—operators remain final decision-makers—builds trust in coalition settingswhere accountability and auditability are non-negotiable.

• Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity underpins the plumbing: high-assurance network encryption, secure gateways and monitoring for mission networks that must move model outputs across borders without leaking sensitive data. Think crypto-agile, policy-aware pipes for AI at coalition scale.

From pilots to pattern
The maturation path for NATO AI is clear: start with high-value, low-controversy use cases (e.g., drone detection along shared air corridors, anomaly spotting on maritime approaches), bake in common data formats and model cards, then expand into joint incident response and shared training pipelines. The north star is a collaboration model where models learn from many nations’ experiences while keeping raw data sovereign—a practical route to speed and scale in a politically complex environment.

3) Smart Surveillance in Urban Centres: security that respects the citizen

European cities are dense, dynamic and privacy-conscious. AI has to earn its place—delivering safety gains without turning public spaces into panopticons. The best deployments share three traits:

a) Edge intelligence and selective sharing
Cameras, acoustic sensors and access controls perform on-device triage—detecting relevant events (abandoned objects, unusual crowd flows, perimeter breaches) and sharing metadata rather than raw feeds. This reduces bandwidth, narrows who sees what, and aligns with data-minimisation principles.

• Safran Electronics & Defense supplies smart optronics and gimbals that stabilise and classify in adverse conditions (rain, glare, vibration), giving cities useful detection where traditional analytics degrade.

• Thales integrates video analytics, licence-plate recognition, and multi-sensor fusion into city command centres, with explainable AI so operators understand the “why” behind alerts, not just the “what”.

b) Critical infrastructure overlays
Transport hubs, energy nodes and stadia are wrapped in multi-layered detection—fusing CCTV, intrusion sensors, RF spectrum monitoring and access control logs. AI links anomalies across these layers, increasing confidence before dispatching responders.

• QinetiQ helps authorities standardise interfaces (e.g., open sensor standards) so that legacy kit and new AI sensors speak the same language, avoiding costly rip-and-replace.

c) Cyber-physical resilience
Every smart camera and badge reader is also an IT asset. Cities now treat operational technology (OT) like an enterprise network: segmented, monitored, patched and defended.

• Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity focuses on zero-trust principles for municipal and national infrastructures: strong identity, micro-segmentation, encrypted telemetry and anomaly detection tuned for OT environments as much as for office IT.

Public trust as a capability
Europe’s regulatory environment—and citizen expectations—demand privacy-by-design. Anonymisation, retention limits, bias testing and independent oversight are not nice-to-haves; they are enablers. Systems that explain their alerts, allow human override, and log decisions for audit will outlast flashy pilots because they keep communities on side.

Company Watch: who does what best

• Helsing (Germany): Battlefield-grade perception and decision support tailored for European sovereignty and coalition use. Strong in sensor-agnostic fusion and rapid fielding across mixed fleets.

• Thales Group (France): Trusted AI across sensors, biometrics, transport and defence. Strong in explainable classification, command-centre integration and operator-in-the-loop design.

• Safran Electronics & Defense (France): Edge AI, optronics and navigation for tough environments—perimeters, towers, mobile platforms. Strong in stabilised imaging and embedded processing that holds up in the weather, on the move, and at scale.

• QinetiQ (UK): Open architectures, counter-UAS integration and multi-sensor orchestration. Strong in turning heterogeneous sensors into one cue-to-action workflow, from single sites to national networks.

• Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity (Germany): High-assurance network security for government and critical infrastructure. Strong in encryption, secure gateways and security monitoring that keep AI signals flowing safely across sensitive boundaries.

Getting from pilot to platform

Leaders often ask: how do we scale AI without creating new risks? A practical playbook for Europe’s border and infrastructure missions:

1. Start with the ops pain. Long queues, false alarms, sensor gaps—pick one, quantify it, and target a 90-day improvement with AI.

2. Own the data pipeline. Curate, label and govern. Poor data discipline kills AI faster than bad models.

3. Design for the operator. Reduce clicks, surface rationale, keep humans in charge. Adoption is a UX problem as much as a model problem.

4. Harden the stack. Treat every camera, radar and scanner as a cyber asset. Build in monitoring, patching and zero-trust from day one.

5. Interoperate from the outset. Use open standards and portable model formats so pilots become platforms, and platforms support partners.

6. Bake in ethics and oversight. Bias tests, retention rules, red-teaming and independent audit keep capability legitimate and durable.

The European edge

Europe’s advantage isn’t just technology; it’s how technology is governed and integrated. A blend of sovereign capability (to reduce dependence), coalition interoperability (to act with allies), and citizen-centred safeguards (to maintain trust) is fast becoming a strategic differentiator. Companies like Helsing, Thales, Safran Electronics & Defense, QinetiQ and Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity are showing that you can be both advanced and accountable—delivering real-world security gains without losing sight of European values.

Bottom line: AI is making borders smarter and infrastructure tougher. Done well, it shortens queues, thwarts intruders, foils drones, detects cyber intrusions and coordinates response—all while keeping a human firmly in command. That’s not hype; it’s the quiet, daily work of keeping Europe open, safe and resilient.