United States Customs and Border Safety is paying Normal Dynamics to create a prototype of “quantum sensors” alongside a “database with artificial intelligence” designed “to detect illicit objects and substances (equivalent to fentanyl) in autos, containers, and different gadgets,” in accordance to a contract justification revealed in a federal register final week.
“This database and sensor challenge will combine superior quantum and classical sensing applied sciences with Synthetic Intelligence and in the end deploy confirmed ideas and finish merchandise wherever in the CBP surroundings,” the justification doc reads. “Underneath this requirement, CBP will take extra steps to improve its capacity to detect, and thus, considerably scale back the harms of illicit contraband coming into the United States of America, thus bolstering nationwide safety.”
The doc redacts the identify of the firm growing the prototype; nevertheless, contract details included in the federal register entry reveal that the justification is for a $2.4 million General Dynamics contract that has been public since December 2025.
CBP and Normal Dynamics did not reply to WIRED’s requests for remark.
CBP’s request for a prototype of “quantum sensors” with an AI database—which comes amid a widespread push inside the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) “to help the adoption and scaling of AI applied sciences,” in accordance to a strategy memorandum revealed final yr—entails an actual and rising space of scientific and technological analysis.
Final week’s justification does not get into element about which strategies its “quantum sensors” would use or what information the AI database would retailer and analyze. Nonetheless, it does present hints about detection strategies the company has thought of.
The doc claims that CBP performed market analysis from April by means of October of 2025. In July, CBP revealed an information request in search of a vendor for precisely 35 handheld “Gemini” analyzers, sold by Thermo Fisher Scientific, which are designed to determine unknown chemical compounds and narcotics.
DHS has additionally examined the Gemini in earlier years, in accordance to experiences revealed in 2021 and 2023. The July request—which notes that the gadgets could be used to determine substances like fentanyl, ketamine, cocaine, methamphetamine, diazepam, and MDMA—makes no point out of synthetic intelligence or a database.
“The detection gear can be utilized by CBP Officers in non-intrusive testing to detect a variety of narcotics, managed substances, unknown substances, and normal natural supplies,” the request reads, noting that the company “continues to seize an rising variety of opioids at the nation’s borders.”
The July request for information claims that the Gemini analyzers use “Fourier Remodel Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR),” which measures how a lot infrared mild a pattern absorbs, and “Raman spectroscopy,” which measures how mild scatters off the floor of a pattern when a laser is directed at it.
Final week’s contract justification says that the company discovered an American firm that creates a “handheld analyzer” for figuring out harmful chemical compounds however claimed it “can’t detect fentanyl.” It’s unclear whether or not this was referring to Gemini or one in all the greater than 10 different gadgets DHS examined in 2021 and 2023. However when reached for remark, Thermo Fisher Scientific mentioned that its Gemini analyzers “are designed to detect fentanyl.”
It’s additionally unclear whether or not the Normal Dynamics prototype might use FTIR or Raman spectroscopy. However a 2024 working paper a couple of laboratory-based fentanyl-detection methodology (unrelated to CBP, Normal Dynamics, or Thermo Fisher Scientific) notes that “moveable Raman spectrometers” and different handheld gadgets—although handy, quick, and cheap—can “battle with detection of fentanyl” and could also be inclined to “false-positive and false-negative outcomes.”
Whereas it stays ambiguous what precisely final week’s justification was referring to with its point out of “quantum” sensors, there are fentanyl detection strategies based mostly in quantum chemistry. The 2024 paper, as an example, explains how “quantum dots” and fluorescent dye can be utilized to detect fentanyl and 58 of its analogues.
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