Podcast: How advancements in additive manufacturing are reshaping industrial production

Key takeaways

Additive manufacturing hit $21.9B in 2024, with materials seeing the strongest growth—signaling broader industrial adoption.
China doubled AM machine exports in two years, now leading global growth with rapid expansion into consumer and EV applications.
U.S. AM growth is driven by government funding and reshoring efforts, with support from programs like AM Forward and America Makes.
Material and software segments grew, but machine OEMs saw decline—highlighting a shift toward optimizing existing AM capabilities.

Dr. Mahdi Jamshid is the director of market intelligence at ASTM International. In his previous role, Mahdi applied his technical expertise to advance standardization efforts by leading R&D projects, identifying future research needs, and fostering new collaborations with technology experts. He also established multiple partnerships with universities and government agencies to apply machine learning and data mining in alloy design, process optimization, and in-situ monitoring. Mahdi recently spoke with Scott Achelpohl, managing editor at Smart Industry, about which regions are leading the additive manufacturing (AM) technology race and why AM is key to reshoring production.

Below is an edited excerpt from the podcast:

SI: Just a little information about Mahdi’s company, Wohlers Associates: a veteran observer of AM, they recently put out the latest version—for 2025—of the Wohlers Report, which had some interesting findings about the current strengths and weaknesses of additive manufacturing. He’ll share some top-line findings from the report during our podcast today, add some perspective about the Nano Dimension–Desktop Metal deal, and we'll have some overall observations about the AM marketplace.

The new Wohlers Report had a top-line number worldwide for additive manufacturing of $21.9 billion in 2024, a 9.9% increase over 2023. I'm looking forward to Mahdi providing more detail, and I’m sure he'll help us really get into the weeds about what's happening with AM—a lot of people in manufacturing are asking. So without further hesitation, let me introduce Mahdi, who has some opening remarks to kick off our discussion here on Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast.

MJ: Hey, Scott. Thanks so much for the invitation and also the great introduction. And you're right—we recently published the Wohlers Report 2025 almost a month ago, marking the 30th anniversary of this major milestone for us.

Beyond the historical significance, this year was particularly important because it was the first time ASTM took full ownership of the report development. That meant introducing much more global transparency, quality control, and also closer alignment with industry needs.

On that last point, we wanted to make sure what goes into the report is the type of information that is relevant to the current needs of the industry—what additive manufacturing stakeholders can use to make business decisions.

At the highest level, this is a 500-page document with six chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on market performance, forecasts, and analysis—a lot of charts, a lot of data. Then Chapters 2 through 6 are individual industries, regional investment, research and development, and over 40 country reports.

This report was put together with the help of 40 of my colleagues—mainly for the quality control aspect—and contributions from 230 external AM experts. I'm so grateful for all the support they provided.

When it comes to additive manufacturing in 2024, our analysis suggests a 9.1% growth over 2023, reaching around $22 billion. Obviously, performance varied by segment. Segments such as software, printing services, and materials all showed positive revenue growth, but machine OEMs experienced a slight decline of about 2%.

One key observation was the growth of the materials sector—the strongest growth—with a little over 20%. That’s an indication of continued adoption. So it's true that end users or service providers are not necessarily purchasing the latest and greatest machines, but they are purchasing a lot more materials—which indicates continued adoption.

One last point about the market’s performance at the highest level: from the regional perspective, Europe and the Middle East saw modest positive growth; the Americas were slightly negative, but both within about ±5%. Last but not least, Asia-Pacific, especially China, led the way with growth just over 30%. There's a range of reasons for this significant growth, which we can get into if you want, Scott.

SI: Sure, Mahdi, that's great context. That said, let's get to some questions about additive manufacturing and how we should view it. Mahdi, can you provide a high-level overview of the additive industry at the global scale right now? In different countries, I know your report lays out that certain countries are performing differently, and certain regions of the world are performing differently than others. Can you just give us a brief overview of that?

MJ: Sure. Yeah. One way to look at the global AM landscape is just by tracking machine installations—basically, how many machines have historically been installed in certain regions. This is the type of data we’ve been tracking for several years.

At the continental perspective—from three regional perspectives that I mentioned earlier—North America is still in the lead, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific.

But when we double-click and zoom into the country level, the U.S. has by far the largest installed base. In the past, Germany and Japan used to be in second and third place, but recently China has surged into #2.

There's one more important factor: it’s not just about the number of machines, but also about the kinds of machines—the models—that are being added. The new machines are typically faster, more productive, with bigger build volumes, higher performance, and higher quality.

Countries investing in next-generation equipment are positioning themselves for a much bigger share of the AM industry in the coming years. I wouldn’t be surprised if China’s share keeps going up in future years.

Everyone we talk to believes that tariffs will help AM become an even more attractive option inside the U.S. for producing parts domestically.
- Mahdi Jamshid, ASTM International

SI: Mahdi, that's really interesting. You mentioned before, certainly in our prior conversations, about how a few countries such as the U.S., Germany, and China are doing. Can you tell us in general terms how you feel the additive industry has been evolving? Has it been evolving more in certain regions over others? What does the overall landscape look like in terms of the maturing of the technology?

MJ: Yeah. So, we have a new set of data that was recently added for the Wohlers Report 2025, and that is the import-export data. I don't think such data has been, at least so far, reported by other market research groups. At the high level, if I want to first provide the big picture view: the three countries I mentioned—the U.S., Germany, and China—exported about $2 billion worth of AM machines. These are printers, basically. Just to be clear, this number refers to the export of machines only; it doesn't include domestic sales, materials, software, or printing services.

Out of this $2 billion, China took the lion's share—about 70%, roughly $1.4 billion. Germany accounts for about 20%, and the U.S. about 10%. From a trend perspective, China's exports doubled over just two years. In 2022, the number was around $600 million, and by the end of 2024, it's over $1.4 billion.

On the other hand, Germany’s exports declined by 20% from 2023 to 2024, and the U.S. also saw a decline. We can also look at this from another perspective: only from the U.S. side, when you look at the machines being imported, about 55% of polymer machines are coming from China. China is the dominant provider of polymer machines. When it comes to metal machines, 80% are from Germany.

So, it sounds like there is a deliberate and strategic decision being made by service providers, end users, and business leaders about what technologies they need and where they are sourcing the machines they need. One last item about Germany: Germany has deployed and developed a lot of AM technology, and they are one of the major exporters of metal machines—at least 80% of the machines coming into the U.S. But we're also seeing, as of the end of 2024, an increase in imported metal machines into Germany itself.

That makes the AM-oriented business environment in Germany very competitive. They are one of the biggest developers of machines, but at the same time, end users and service providers in Germany are purchasing from outside Germany. It's a very interesting dynamic that we observed last year.

SI: That is interesting. Smart Industry is a little bit U.S.-centric in how it covers manufacturing technology. Does all this maneuvering in the foreign markets—these overseas markets—shift or change the fortunes of additive manufacturing in the U.S.?

MJ: Well, I wouldn't say that the additive manufacturing industry in the U.S. is in decline.Like I said, it's a very dynamic situation, both here in the U.S. and globally. I can probably start with China first. Like you said, they doubled their exports of machines last year. We have some of our team members in Singapore and that region—they're closely monitoring the performance of AM in Asia.

A few days ago, the Q1 data came out, and it showed a 45% increase in the additive manufacturing industry alone. A 45% year-over-year quarterly performance is a significant number. That was close to 1 million machines exported. I understand that many of these machines are low-cost desktop machines—the average cost is about $365—but there are also a few hundred large million-dollar machines included in that number. I also understand that some of the numbers coming out of China have to be closely evaluated, but still, this growth is very significant.

On the other side, the range of applications in China is also something to pay attention to. Beyond the usual medical, dental, and aerospace applications, they are also scaling in areas such as shoe molding, electric vehicles, and consumer goods—in ways that we are not really seeing elsewhere. But that also comes with challenges.

They obviously have access to the global market, and they have a large domestic market that uses a lot of capabilities there. But the number of companies launching in China has grown significantly. What we are expecting is that this situation is not sustainable. It's impossible for all of those companies to make a profit. So we are expecting consolidation in China as well—something that has already started on the Western side.

Now, if we shift gears and talk about the U.S., there are a lot of positives that we're hearing, mainly from the government support perspective. If I want to give you just a couple of examples: There’s a company called 6K Additive. They received over $20 million in grants from the Department of Defense for producing nickel and titanium alloys. There’s another powder producer called Equispheres that received over $20 million in loans from one of the banks in the U.S. to produce refractory alloys—something that has critical applications. There’s also a new fund called the Stifel North Atlantic Fund, basically a funding allocation mechanism to allow small, medium, and large companies to expand their AM operations.

Maybe your audience has heard about an initiative called AM Forward, which complements Stifel. AM Forward works on large programs to create a demand signal and encourage companies to purchase from local suppliers. And America Makes is also funding a lot of activities; they are part of that ecosystem. So, we are seeing a lot of support from the government.

One more item I would add is the macroeconomic forces, like tariffs. We don't know all the details yet—we’re recording this podcast at the end of April 2024—but everyone we talk to believes that tariffs will help AM become an even more attractive option inside the U.S. for producing parts domestically.

About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.