HP’s Formnext Announcements Show Its Dedication to Building a Global 3D Printing Network

HP typically makes its announcements in clusters when it’s time for a major additive manufacturing (AM) industry event, and the company has continued that pattern against the backdrop of Formnext 2025. Moreover, HP’s announcements this year illustrate how the company has progressively built upon its AM ecosystem to create a network that’s broad-based in terms of both technological capabilities and geographic reach.

In 2023, for instance, HP announced a wide range of new metal powder offerings for its Metal Jet platform in collaboration with GKN Powder Metallurgy (formerly GKN Additive). This year, HP has announced that it will be working with GKN to expand customer access to copper, in a move directly responding to growing market interest in thermal management applications for high-performance computing.

HP also announced its strategic partnership with metal powder supplier INDO-MIM at Formnext 2023. INDO-MIM and Continuum Powders recently revealed that they collaborated to qualify Continuum’s OptiPowder Ni718 for the Metal Jet S100. Now, HP is announcing that the company is partnering with Continuum and Basque research center TECNALIA to further the development of another nickel-based superalloy, OptiPowder M247LC.

Meanwhile, HP will also be releasing two new 3D printers next year, one in the first half of 2026, and the other in the second half. Notably, they will be filament-based systems: the HP Industrial Filament 3D Printer 600 High Temperature (HP IF 600HT) and the HP Industrial Filament 3D Printer (HP IF 1000 XL).

Finally, HP is building upon its success with the HP Digital Manufacturing Network with the new HP Additive Manufacturing Network (AMN) program. While there aren’t too many details yet on how this differs, HP does note that the main purpose is “connecting parts demand with HP’s partner network.” And one more HP announcement, a partnership with Würth Additive Group (WAG) to make HP’s AM portfolio available through WAG’s Digital Inventory Services (DIS) platform, may provide some more clues as to what we can expect from the AMN.

Attendees of Formnext 2025 can learn more by visiting the HP booth, #D41 in Hall 21.1.

From what I can tell, it’s not yet possible to just order 3D printed parts through the HP website, although you can submit information, including parts specifications, through their Metal Jet Production Service website, after which someone will get back to you. But the fact that the company is partnering with WAG suggests that HP may be putting more of its attention on making it far easier to directly order 3D printed parts from one of HP’s participating suppliers.

In any case, one of these announcements on its own would be noteworthy, so making them all at once is indeed quite a bit to process. It’s fascinating, for instance, that at a time when everyone seems convinced that low-cast FDM machines are making industrial-grade counterparts obsolete (note: I am not one of the people convinced of that), HP is choosing to launch its own filament-based systems more than a decade after exiting that market segment.

Then again, more or less the same can be said about binder jetting: everyone seemed convinced that the technology is being left for dead, but here HP is, announcing copper-based binder jetting solutions for one of the AM verticals that seems to have the most momentum behind it currently, data centers.

I’m most intrigued by the WAG collaboration, though, because I think now is the time for digital inventory, and these are two brands with unusually lengthy track records for the AM industry. There’s massive potential for synergy here for both companies. WAG announced the full launch of its DIS platform earlier this year at AMUG. I’m curious to see how the Formnext crowd responds to it, especially in light of the HP partnership.

Featured image courtesy of HP