“Skyports Drone Services, Quantum Systems Sign MOU to Launch New Drone Surveillance Service — Overwatch”

UK-based Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices, a leader in drone-enabled deliv­ery and inspec­tion, and Quan­tum Sys­tems, an AI-pow­ered unmanned intel­li­gence solu­tions com­pa­ny, announced this week at DSEI UK 2025, a part­ner­ship via a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU), to launch ‘Over­watch’, a ready-to-deploy ISR-as-a-ser­vice offer­ing for gov­ern­ment and com­mer­cial cus­tomers, reports a press release.

Under this col­lab­o­ra­tion, Quan­tum is to sup­ply its advanced drone plat­forms and pay­loads, while Sky­ports pro­vides the oper­a­tional lay­er includ­ing reg­u­la­to­ry approvals, flight oper­a­tions and mis­sion deliv­ery. This will enable cus­tomers to access mis­sion results with­out the need to invest sig­nif­i­cant upfront cap­i­tal.

Alex Brown, Direc­tor of Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices, com­ment­ed, “We’re see­ing real demand from major organ­i­sa­tions for drone sur­veil­lance. Whether it is for envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing or asset inspec­tion, secu­ri­ty and air qual­i­ty.”

He con­tin­ued, “With Over­watch, we can deliv­er these ben­e­fits as a turnkey solu­tion, giv­ing clients trust­ed intel­li­gence when and where they need it.”

Adding, “Con­fi­dence in air­craft per­for­mance is para­mount, and Quantum’s excep­tion­al sys­tems give us the reli­a­bil­i­ty and capa­bil­i­ty to add real val­ue to our oper­a­tions and to cus­tomers’ deci­sion-mak­ing.”

Sign­ing the deal

The release explains, “The ser­vice is designed for high-val­ue use cas­es, includ­ing mar­itime sur­veil­lance, bor­der con­trol, lin­ear asset inspec­tion and pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing. Com­pared to tra­di­tion­al heli­copter oper­a­tions, drones pro­vide intel­li­gence faster, more cost-effec­tive­ly and with a low­er car­bon foot­print, while being deploy­able remote­ly and at short notice.”

With cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions, Euro­pean gov­ern­ments are recog­nis­ing the impor­tance of being able to gath­er sur­veil­lance data quick­ly. Over­watch offers a capex-light mod­el that can be mobilised imme­di­ate­ly, while deliv­er­ing capa­bil­i­ty where it is need­ed most.

Mar­tin Kark­our, Chief Rev­enue Offi­cer of Quan­tum Sys­tems remarked, “This part­ner­ship strength­ens our UK pres­ence by lever­ag­ing the country’s capa­bil­i­ties and infra­struc­ture to deliv­er supe­ri­or unmanned intel­li­gence solu­tions.”

Mean­while, Quantum’s major investor, tech­nol­o­gy entre­pre­neur and ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, Peter Thiel, is set to invest UKP43 mil­lion in UK defence oper­a­tions dur­ing the next five years, fol­low­ing the acqui­si­tion of Nordic Unmanned UK. 

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Sky­ports via Quan­tum, under­scores his ambi­tion to strength­en a foothold in the UK’s secu­ri­ty ecosys­tem by fund­ing infra­struc­ture, local engi­neer­ing, main­te­nance, repair oper­a­tions and part­ner­ships with var­i­ous British providers.

Peter Thiel

The invest­ment comes as the race to dom­i­nate the AI-pow­ered defence drone mar­ket inten­si­fies. Rival Euro­pean tech uni­corn, Hels­ing, has already raised EUR1.5 bil­lion to date and is cur­rent­ly val­ued at around EUR13 bil­lion. 

Quan­tum is also plan­ning to devel­op train­ing and test infra­struc­ture, fos­ter­ing local engi­neer­ing skills and gen­er­at­ing new jobs. 

This aligns with the UK’s Min­istry of Defence’s 20–40-40 strat­e­gy, which envi­sions 20 per­cent crewed plat­forms, direct­ing 40 per­cent reusable sys­tems like drones, and 40 per­cent expend­able sys­tems such as mis­siles.

The release con­cludes, “Sky­ports has already begun oper­at­ing Quan­tum Sys­tems’ Vec­tor AI drone, con­duct­ing tri­al and train­ing flights ahead of antic­i­pat­ed oper­a­tions across the EMEA region. The ser­vice will be offered glob­al­ly, lever­ag­ing the company’s exist­ing oper­a­tional foot­print.”

For more infor­ma­tion

www.skyportsdroneservices.com

https://quantum-systems.com

(Top image: Mar­tin Kark­our, Alex Brown shake hands on the part­ner­ship)

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