In preparation for our annual overview of the yr in 3D printing, I’ve been going by way of the archives. This yr, along with the deeper month-to-month evaluations, we’re additionally publishing this two-part government abstract. The primary six months of 2025 learn like a downcycle with a really particular bid: protection and propulsion as demand anchors, qualification and requirements as the true bottlenecks, AI as workflow compression fairly than magic, and consolidation, typically authorized, because the clean-up mechanism.
The opening half of 2025 didn’t really feel like a yr of acceleration. Revenues remained underneath stress, shipments softened in elements of the commercial market, and company restructurings continued. But the interval was not directionless. Quite the opposite, the business’s centre of gravity turned clearer exactly as a result of development was constrained. What emerged was a producing sector being organised, not disrupted.
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Defence stops being “a vertical”
Essentially the most constant sign in H1 2025 was the repositioning of defence from one software space amongst many to a stabilising pressure shaping how additive manufacturing is deployed.
This was seen at a number of ranges. Nationwide methods positioned additive manufacturing explicitly inside defence industrial planning, together with the UK Ministry of Defence’s first Defence Superior Manufacturing Technique, which framed 3D printing as important to supply-chain resilience fairly than a distinct segment functionality. Allied initiatives bolstered this logic, from interoperability programmes to shared qualification efforts throughout NATO-aligned companions.
On the operational degree, the emphasis shifted from pilots to techniques: expeditionary manufacturing ideas, digital inventories for spares, and proposals for dual-use manufacturing capability able to switching between civilian and navy output. The sample was not “defence is fascinated about AM.” It was that defence is organising AM into an industrial system.
2026 implication: procurement logic, qualification pathways, and interoperability will matter as a lot as machine specs.
Qualification pace turns into a strategic weapon
One of many clearest constraints uncovered in H1 was time. Not print time, however time to certification.
Initiatives backed by companies corresponding to DARPA targeted explicitly on collapsing qualification cycles, from months to days, utilizing data-driven validation and commodity compute. The message was unmistakable: in additive manufacturing, time-to-certification is time-to-revenue.
This reframing issues. It shifts worth away from seen {hardware} advances and towards much less glamorous infrastructure: course of management, in-situ monitoring, inspection, and requirements compliance. These should not development tales within the conventional sense, however they decide whether or not development is feasible in any respect. As one recurring theme in government commentary made clear, quicker qualification doesn’t imply decrease requirements; it means higher proof.
2026 implication: probably the most priceless corporations could look “boring”, QA platforms, knowledge pipelines, and inspection applied sciences, however they may personal the bottlenecks.
Requirements quietly cross a maturity threshold
In February, 3MF was ratified as ISO/IEC 25422:2025, a second that handed with comparatively little fanfare. It mustn’t have.
File interoperability will not be a beauty subject. It’s how additive manufacturing scales throughout a number of machines, websites, and suppliers with out bespoke engineering glue. STL’s longevity was an indication of immaturity; standardised, metadata-rich codecs are a prerequisite for regulated manufacturing.
The actual take a look at remains to be forward. Requirements solely matter as soon as they’re enforced, by procurement necessities, by regulators, or by default settings inside OEM software program stacks. However H1 2025 marked the purpose at which interoperability stopped being aspirational and have become institutional.
2026 implication: look ahead to adoption, not bulletins: OEM defaults, procurement mandates, and regulator consolation.
Consolidation adjustments form
By the spring, Nano Dimension had closed its acquisitions of each Desktop Metallic and Markforged, bringing to an finish one of many business’s most protracted company sagas.
This was not the top of consolidation. It was a change in section. The acquisition headlines had been the simple half. What adopted, and can outline 2026, are more durable questions: portfolio rationalisation, value self-discipline, product overlap, and cultural integration. Consolidation is now not about who buys whom, however about who can combine with out destroying worth.
Litigation additionally performed a visual position, significantly within the desktop and prosumer section. Mental property disputes had been now not side-shows; they had been mechanisms shaping platform management, ecosystem entry, and pricing energy.
2026 implication: integration high quality will matter greater than deal quantity.
AI strikes from spectacle to compression
Synthetic intelligence remained omnipresent in H1, however its position subtly modified. Moderately than grand claims about autonomous design, probably the most credible purposes targeted on compression: decreasing friction between design intent and manufacturable output. AI-assisted CAD, scan-to-CAD workflows, and automatic quoting expanded design abundance. That abundance, in flip, pushed worth downstream, into validation, model management, legal responsibility, and governance.
Briefly, AI promised to make design cheaper. The whole lot else turned costlier. This dynamic mirrors earlier phases of digitalisation in manufacturing, the place productiveness beneficial properties upstream elevated stress on high quality and compliance downstream.
2026 implication: disputes over coaching knowledge, IP provenance, and platform lock-in will intensify.
Medical and point-of-care: actual, regulated, sluggish
Medical additive manufacturing continued to generate credible milestones in H1, together with FDA trials, approvals, and the enlargement of point-of-care amenities inside hospitals. The message was constant: this isn’t speculative and it’s not quick.
Success relies upon equally on 3D printers coupled with high quality administration techniques, traceability, reimbursement pathways, and integration with scientific workflows. The know-how works; the working mannequin determines scale. As Bart Van der Schueren of Materialise has famous elsewhere, some purposes take greater than a decade to maneuver from idea to quantity manufacturing. 2025 provided additional proof that this endurance is structural, not distinctive.
2026 implication: scale shall be pushed by reimbursement, hospital QA functionality, and service-led enterprise fashions.
Alerts value protecting in thoughts
A number of quieter insights from H1 are more likely to matter greater than headline bulletins:
Client-adjacent {hardware} in operational sustainment, together with the usage of desktop-class machines in defence contexts, suggests a shift in procurement logic. “Adequate, replaceable, quick” can outperform conventional industrial techniques if governance is powerful.
CRADAs and formal programmes outperform MOUs as indicators of seriousness. Agreements tied to qualification pathways matter greater than partnership theatre.
Metrology and inspection consolidation counsel the management level is shifting. Whoever owns measurement more and more owns adoption.
Ecosystem belief turns into a product constraint. Open-source tensions and platform governance disputes will more and more have an effect on enterprise and regulatory selections, not simply neighborhood sentiment.
Way forward for 3D printing actuality examine.
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Featured picture exhibits Canary Wharf. Photograph by Michael Petch.
