AM Weekly · Week 39: European and US defense primes and suppliers add in-house metal AM capacity for missiles, submarines, and aircraft sustainment

Vertical integration into qualified defense production is accelerating as Kongsberg ordered two EOS/AMCM multi-laser LPBF systems for missile and aerostructure work, AML3D began printing US Navy submarine CuNi parts under an AU$0.5M Austal order, and Titomic won a $5M USAF cold-spray placement at Tinker AFB. The pattern implies Western machine vendors and pure-play hardware OEMs must now pair installed capacity with qualification evidence or risk being locked out of contracted primes' in-house pipelines. Radian Forge's $2.5M seed atop a $10.5M WAAM buildout shows private capital is funding the same shift from pilot to recurring defense output.

European and US defense primes and suppliers add in-house metal AM capacity for missiles, submarines, and aircraft sustainment

Kongsberg, AML3D, Titomic, and Radian Forge each took a concrete step this week to move metal AM from pilot to contracted defense production - two AMCM/EOS multi-laser systems installed in Norway, a first US Navy submarine CuNi part order under an AU$0.5M Austal contract, a $5M USAF cold-spray placement at Tinker AFB, and a $2.5M seed on top of an existing $10.5M Portsmouth WAAM buildout.

Kongsberg ordered two EOS/AMCM multi-laser LPBF systems for its Missiles & Aerostructures division, including a large-format AMCM M 4K, in what the company describes as its first equipment purchase under a new EOS/AMCM partnership covering missile and aerostructure qualification and flight-part production in Norway. The second system is an M 290-2 1kW, and installation is backed by EOS's Additive Minds applications team. Kongsberg is a long-standing missile prime — its JSM/NSM programs supply Norway, Germany, and the US — but it has been an AM customer rather than an operator; the order moves demonstrator and qualification hardware in-house.

AML3D began printing US Navy submarine production parts under a AU$0.5M order from Austal USA Advanced Technologies covering three large, high-pressure copper-nickel fluid control components, with delivery due Q3 FY27 and production at its Stow, Ohio facility. This is the same order reported on 2026-09-17; what changed this week is that printing has started. The company reported 70% FY2026 revenue growth and its first profitable half-year on 2026-09-02, and carried a record AU$29M order book into FY2027, with two of six ARCEMY systems accepted at Newport News Shipbuilding. The Austal work is the first recurring CuNi parts production line rather than a systems sale.

Titomic won a $5M USAF contract to install a TKF high-pressure cold spray system at Tinker Air Force Base, the largest US Air Force maintenance depot, with delivery due Q3 2027. It follows four US orders worth over A$750,000 across aerospace, defense, space, and energy in the two weeks to 2026-09-07, and a 2026-08-10 order from EOS Defense Systems USA. Radian Forge separately raised a $2.5M seed led by Veteran Ventures Capital, which takes a board seat, layering private capital onto an already-announced $10.5M Virginia WAAM facility expansion serving naval and defense customers.

Chinese metal AM suppliers close large rounds and open large-format capacity while pushing copper cooling into AI-server supply chains

Eplus3D completed an RMB 558M Beijing campus targeting 300+ large-format LPBF units a year, Gongda Laser closed a C+ round led by Shenzhen Capital Group for green-laser pure-copper LPBF aimed at AI liquid cooling, Xinjinghe raised a several-hundred-million-RMB round for 3C and server-cooling parts, and Farsoon detailed four copper-alloy LPBF process packages with a claimed thermal-resistance advantage over CNC-brazed cold plates.

Eplus3D completed an RMB 558M ($78M) Beijing plant spanning 58,400 sqm and sized for 300-plus large-format metal LPBF units a year, a second production campus alongside Hangzhou. The company's EP-M3050 platform, a 3-meter-class machine launched in April 2026, is cited in rocket nozzle and combustion chamber work. The plant opening follows a withdrawn STAR Market IPO in March 2026 and subsequent regulatory warning letters to the company and its sponsor, so the expansion is being funded off private capital rather than listing proceeds. No customer names for the 300-unit capacity were disclosed in the announcements.

Separately, Gongda Laser closed a C+ round led by Shenzhen Capital Group, its second disclosed raise in five months after a Series C in May led by Fortune Capital and Guanghe Chuangtou. The company's 4,000W green laser targets pure-copper LPBF, with stated end markets in copper liquid cooling and optical module parts. Its internal profile describes a three-year plan for 1,000 green-laser AM units, against competitors that include TRUMPF's green-laser systems, IPG Photonics, and Coherent. Gongda's raises are supplier-side — laser sources, not complete machines — which makes them a different signal class from the OEM capacity announcements below.

Xinjinghe raised a several-hundred-million-RMB round led by CMC Capital and CIMC Capital, the Huzhou-based metal AM firm's second disclosed raise in five days, directed at consumer-electronics and AI-server liquid-cooling parts. Farsoon, meanwhile, detailed four copper-alloy LPBF process packages covering CuCrZr cold plates, TPMS channels, fins, and capillary structures, and said its SLM copper-alloy cold-plate process beat CNC-machined, brazed designs on thermal resistance under equivalent-condition tests. Farsoon reported an 87.09% net profit increase for H1 2026 in July and has a private placement of up to RMB 3.91B accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in August, which would be China's largest 3D printing raise if completed. The specific thermal-resistance figures behind the cold-plate claim were not disclosed in the announcement.

Two more Chinese hardware vendors showed copper cooling parts this week without tying them to a named server customer: Huagong Laser's Wuhan facility is printing copper microchannel AI-server cooling plates with 100-micron channels on a new 450x350mm metal printer, and HGTech showed a 0.1mm-precision metal printer producing AI-server heat-dissipation parts, a machine already used for phone and watch cases.

Across the six announcements, three companies — Gongda, Xinjinghe, and Farsoon — name AI-server liquid cooling as a target application for copper LPBF, and two more showed parts without naming customers. What the week does not contain is an AI-server maker or data-center operator confirming it sources any of these cold plates. The capability claims are supplier-side and, in Farsoon's case, benchmark-based rather than tied to a disclosed production program.

Korean AM moves into qualified industrial and regulated medical production: nuclear impeller, dental resin clearance, and a digital-twin medical pilot

Daekeon Tech's LPBF 316L impeller completed 18 months of defect-free service at KHNP's Saeul Unit 1, Graphy filed a US FDA 510(k) for a ceramic-filled dental prosthetic resin after Korean Class II certification and separately took a 26.14% controlling stake in Ray, and Daegu launched a digital-twin/AI-monitored shared medical-device printing pilot with Rootlab and Hugon.

Daekeon Tech's LPBF 316L impeller completed 18 months of service at KHNP's Saeul Unit 1 without a defect, KHNP confirmed, making it the first in-plant validation of an additively manufactured part in a Korean nuclear plant. The company supplied the multi-blade impeller to KHNP in 2024; installation followed in 2025, and the inspection after the fuel cycle came back clean. KHNP has said it plans to apply 3D-printed components at other plants and is running R&D on SMR parts, according to external coverage, though the utility has not named the printing process for those future parts. Daekeon's background is worth keeping in mind: the Changwon-based firm bootstrapped its way to 800mm-class LPBF systems and holds DQMS and KS Q 9100 certifications, so the nuclear qualification track record sits alongside defense and aerospace work rather than standing alone.

Graphy launched Tera Harz E-Namel (model R-191), a ceramic-filled dental prosthetic resin carrying 53% inorganic ceramic filler, after Korean Class II certification on September 7, 2026, and filed a US FDA 510(k) for the same material. The product targets permanent crowns, bridges, inlays, and onlays — the milled-restoration category rather than the aligner category Graphy is known for. Separately, Graphy completed its acquisition of a 26.14% controlling stake in Ray, becoming the largest shareholder and pairing dental imaging and software with direct-printed orthodontic output. Both moves land against a busy 180 days: a KRW 48.3B convertible bond in July, MOUs with MegaGen in June and Busan National University's dental school in August, and a 2.1x initial contact force result for its shape-memory aligner published September 8. The 510(k) filing is a milestone, not a clearance — the FDA pathway remains open.

Daegu launched a pilot for shared medical-device 3D printing built around a real-time digital twin and AI monitoring, with Rootlab and Hugon developing the facility toward planned 24-hour operation. The program is described as South Korea's first digital-twin pilot for 3D-printed medical-device production. Rootlab is a September 2022 spin-off from the Ministry of SMEs' corporate venture program with KRW 300M in SAFE funding from KIBO as of October 2024; the digital-twin medical-device demonstration project is its first manufacturing-facing engagement after blockchain and public-sector work. The pilot's relevance to regulated production is that process monitoring and traceability sit inside the QMS rather than outside it — but the project is at the development stage, and no output volumes, cleared devices, or manufacturer-of-record arrangements have been disclosed.

Two of this week's three items are qualification events with multi-year clocks rather than commercial launches. The Khon impeller's 18-month inspection is the closest thing to durable production evidence; the Graphy 510(k) and the Daegu pilot are both starting points. The open question the week leaves is who holds the manufacturing quality system in the Daegu shared-facility model — the pilot names Rootlab and Hugon as technology partners, not as the regulated manufacturer of record.

This Week in Brief

Funding

Rem3dy Health - Rem3dy Health raised £14m at an £84m valuation to expand its 3D-printed vitamin gummies into the US, MENA, India and pet health.
VulcanForms - VulcanForms appointed Jeff Hemenway as Chief Revenue Officer following its 2026 factory buildout and $220M Series D.
Global Laser Box - Global Laser Box closed a nearly RMB 200 million Series A to fund self-developed SLM lasers and software alongside a desktop metal printer sold in 60-plus countries.
Shandong Maihe Additive Manufacturing - Shandong Maihe used a CNY 5 million grant-to-equity award to upgrade its custom orthotic scan-to-model workflow and surpassed CNY 20 million in 2025 revenue.

Product & Technology

Tanxue - Tanxue's SnowPod desktop metal printer prints ER316L stainless steel within an 80x80x100mm build volume, as China's 3D printing equipment output rose 29.9% in August.
Eplus3D - Eplus3D's EP-M400 LPBF system produced crack-free nickel-copper alloy parts for Young-Will Aerospace at 570 MPa tensile strength, 18% above forged equivalents.
Stratasys - Stratasys won a $27.6M jury verdict after a Texas court found Bambu Lab willfully infringed four FDM patents.
Alloyed - Alloyed is adding over 100 staff to scale a UK MOD-funded turbojet family from 30N to 2,000N, with a 1,100N unit due flight-ready by April 2027.
Ruitong - Ruitong's M-150 LPBF system served as the designated metal-printing platform for Guangzhou's additive manufacturing skills competition.
Creality - Creality's H1 2026 revenue rose but net profit swung to a loss as a price war squeezed margins in China's consumer 3D printing market.
Ruihu Mould - Ruihu Mould earmarked RMB 267 million of a RMB 686 million convertible bond for a smart additive manufacturing mold-material project.
Lizhi Medical - Lizhi Medical is commissioning an electron-beam metal 3D printing line in Qingdao for orthopedic implants, targeting production by late October 2026.
Stratasys - Stratasys Japan installed the first Neo 800 large-format SLA printer at Meidensha for hydro and wind power equipment development.
ASMAR - ASMAR launched a Corfo-backed WAAM project in Valparaiso to locally produce and repair naval components with 6-12 month spare-part lead times.

Partnership

LIG D&A - LIG D&A advances a 70-140mm solid rocket motor partnership with Firehawk Aerospace, three months after the June 2026 MOU.
Gongsaeng - Gongsaeng signed an MOU with Korea Veterans Health Service Central Hospital to develop 3D-printed prosthetics for Vietnam War blast survivors.

Compiled from 38 sources across AMPulse's news index. Week 39 of 2026.