$21.9B 3D Printing Market Revives Optimism at RAPID + TCT 2025

As the additive manufacturing (AM) community descended on Detroit for the industry’s largest North American trade show, RAPID + TCT, ASTM International released the 30th anniversary edition of Wohlers Report. The report pegged the global AM market at $21.9 billion, with a 9.1% compound annual growth rate—figures that would thrill most industries, as Stratasys CEO Yoav Zeif has noted.

Yet within the AM world, the mood was tempered. Growth persists, but the macroeconomic climate has cast a long shadow. RAPID + TCT 2025 reflected this tension: a mix of frustration and forward-looking resolve.

Velo3D’s Metal 3D Printing Turnaround

No company embodied that tension more than metal 3D printer manufacturer Velo3D. Once a poster child for next-gen metal 3D printing, it suffered heavily during the SPAC collapse and came close to bankruptcy in late 2024. But in a dramatic turnaround, the company was rescued by an Indiana-based entrepreneur, Arun Jeldi, who restructured the company and gave it a new strategic focus. Now, the company has shifted from a sole AM system producer to also include a parts manufacturing service.

“The transformation over the past six months has been dramatic,” Velo3D Chief Operating Officer Brad Kreger said. “We went from a company burdened by debt and an inefficient cost structure to one with a clear strategy, a revitalized engineering focus, and a diversified revenue model that includes not just machine sales, but parts manufacturing and technical services.”

That shift has already proven magnetic. Velo3D veterans have returned to the company, bringing new industry talent with them. As Chief Revenue Officer Michelle Sidwell put it, “The technology, the people, and the mission—especially our role in defense and space programs—are what brought me back. There’s a greater cause here. We’re the only U.S.-based company in our segment manufacturing domestically, and we take that responsibility seriously.”

Velo3D is also addressing some of its longtime challenges head-on. “We’re not perfect,” admitted Chief Executive Officer Arun Jeldi, who saved the company from bankruptcy by becoming the majority shareholder of Velo3D at the end of 2024. “But we know the issues, and we’re fixing them. By running our own parts manufacturing operation, we’re collecting data directly from our machines—data that’s helping us improve usability and reliability for external customers.”

3D printer manufacturers that also 3D print parts as a service are often criticized for competing against their own customers and eating into the service bureau market. However, complex AM technologies often require specialized expertise, while offering immediate revenue during the long sale cycles associated with hardware. For that reason, the company may be poised for a phoenix-like recovery, bolstered by a leaner board, a new generation of machine learning initiatives, and training programs aimed at both customers and future operators.

AI and Workforce Development with EOS

At the opposite end of the metal AM spectrum is EOS, the German stalwart with what was once the largest installed base in its class. Despite a diverse array of competitors entering the market, EOS isn’t chasing volume. As Greg Hayes, Senior Vice President of Global Additive Minds at EOS, put it, “It’s not just about pushing capacity into the market—it’s about understanding the customer’s needs and meeting them with solutions that work.”

That includes strategic integration of AI—not as a developer, but as what Hayes calls “one of the best integrators” of tools across the enterprise. EOS’s Smart Fusion technology, for example, uses machine learning to adapt builds in real-time. “What once required an industry veteran,” Hayes noted, “can now be done by someone with far less experience.”

Accessibility is also central to EOS’s workforce development strategy. The company doubled down on training during COVID, developing a comprehensive curriculum tailored specifically to powder bed fusion users. “We’ve created digital and in-person learning environments, from Detroit to Germany to APAC,” Hayes said. “And we’re now certifying operators through programs in partnership with ASTM International, giving customers the ability to tune their systems with confidence.”

Advancing Additive Manufacturing Standards

This theme of long-term infrastructure building over short-term hype carried through into a panel at RAPID + TCT titled “AM Maturation Phase: Focus on Applications and Profitability”. Moderated by Richard Huff, Director of Industry Consortium and Partnerships at ASTM International, the discussion gathered leaders from aerospace, medical devices, and contract manufacturing to explore how AM is—or isn’t—transitioning from prototyping to profitable production.

“We’re not in the prototyping phase anymore,” said Trey Rogers, AM and Biomaterials subject matter expert at Zimmer Biomet. “By the numbers, if you look at the FDA 510(k) submissions for metal implants, there were zero in 2010. A decade later, there were over 350.”

The biggest hurdle? Qualification. “The cost of qualifying a single material on a single machine is in the millions,” said Josh Norman, Sr. Principal Engineer of AM Strategy at Collins Aerospace. “And once you’ve done that, can you even reuse that data if you change the laser count or go to a larger-format system? That’s a serious barrier to scale.”

Panelists repeatedly returned to the issue of repeatability—not just from machine to machine, but across process changes, software updates, and evolving customer needs. “We’re qualifying a dot, not a window,” remarked Harshil Goel, Founder & CEO of Dyndrite Corporation. “And that destroys the flexibility AM was supposed to enable.”

Teague advocated for performance-based frameworks over prescriptive ones, describing an RTX internal approach called “Q3+” that modularizes qualification and prioritizes repeatability across builds. Still, there was a note of optimism that echoed across sectors. “We’ve hit the low-hanging fruit,” Rogers said. “Now it’s time to push into the higher-value applications—where AM can offer performance or cost advantages that conventional methods simply can’t.”

The key takeaway: AM’s maturation will require more than just better machines. It will demand smarter qualification strategies, increased industry focus on development of consensus-based standards, and a collective shift from one-off hero parts to reproducible, profitable production.

Additive Manufacturing & Geopolitics

This theme of long-term resilience over short-term flash was echoed during one of RAPID + TCT’s more candid sessions, a panel titled “Impact of New Administration Policies on Additive Manufacturing in the U.S. and Globally.” Sponsored by America Makes and SME, the discussion tackled how the shifting political winds are shaping the AM industry, from tariffs and reshoring to defense spending and private capital.

As a member of the panel myself, I noted that even before Trump—and particularly under Biden—there was already a foundation laid for reshoring. The big difference is that Biden used the carrot, and now Trump is using the stick—or as moderator, Kimberly Gibson, Industrial Base Integration Director for America Makes, said, “maybe it’s not a stick—maybe it’s a sledgehammer.”

That message may be loud, but it isn’t always clear. Panelist Tuan TranPham, President of Americas and Asia-Pacific for Anisoprint, observed, “We all want reshoring, but additive still isn’t mature enough for real manufacturing. The material properties and costs are too high. Even with automation, it won’t help if the technology itself isn’t ready for mass production.”

Despite the challenges, public-private partnerships are fueling progress. “Reshoring won’t happen by accident,” Gibson said. “That’s why we’re focusing now not just on innovation but on integration—connecting small and mid-sized enterprises with OEMs to form flexible supply networks.”

Still, government alone can’t carry the weight. Private equity is already stepping in. Demonstrating this is a new company called the Advanced Manufacturing Company of America that, with $76 million in backing from venture capital, aims to roll up small manufacturers and rebuild the industrial base privately.

Ultimately, despite all the uncertainty—tariffs, workforce shortages, and fragile global supply chains—there was a quiet sense of alignment at RAPID + TCT 2025. Whether from machine manufacturers, contract manufacturers, software developers, or national labs, the message was consistent: the AM industry is more focused on industrialization than ever, and ready to meet the moment.

Terry Wohlers, one of the industry’s most recognized voices, put it aptly in a panel dedicated to geopolitics and AM: “When it comes to tariffs, I haven’t yet seen many positives—except that, like the pandemic, we’ll come out stronger. We’ll learn new skills we didn’t know we needed, and those will be critical moving forward.”