3D Printing Predictions 2026: Industrial Production & Polymer Additive Manufacturing

Polymer additive manufacturing is seeing less investment, attention, and disruption than metal additive manufacturing currently. Less crucial for defense needs, it has of late had far fewer new entrants. But, vat polymerization in particular is becoming entrenched in dental manufacturing, alongside its traditional strongholds in jewelry intermediates and hearing aids. Here, competition is fierce. Low-cost vat polymerization machines are making their presence felt in all sorts of industrial use cases. LPBF is progressing with incremental improvements. Material extrusion is seeing more materials and a gradual expansion of use cases. On the horizon, the effects of better desktop material extrusion systems are coming. These are seeing wholesale adoption in enterprises, depressing some prototyping use, and being used for more and more end-use part production in industrial customers.