According to an article in australianmanufacturing.com , additive manufacturing (AM) for the military has surpassed $800 million in 2024. But even that huge figure looks small in comparison to the $2.6 billion forecast for 2030.
The data was taken from the latest study from Additive Manufacturing Research (AM Research) and tracks and predicts spending on 3D print technologies.
The growth is clearly exponential but what factors explain such a huge increase?
There are a number of factors that explain the rapid adoption of AD by the defence industry.
Escalating global tensions and security challenges leads to increased spending on defence and AD is a critical pathway to the development and deployment of military assets. Its adoption is having a transformative impact.
AD provides enhanced precision and customisation whilst also being cost efficient to produce critical components.
There is also the speed of production and the reduced reliance on critical supply chains which is clearly an advantage from a defence perspective.
Please refer to the following article for more detail. The original study can also be found here.