Colibrium Goes After Serial Production With Its Most Powerful M Line Yet

Colibrium Additive, the GE Aerospace-owned metal AM business, was at Formnext 2025 in Frankfurt this week to introduce its latest machine upgrade: a 4 × 1 kW version of the M Line, built to let aerospace and defense suppliers print parts faster while keeping the accuracy needed for regulated, safety-critical parts.

The new system, now commercially available for non-reactive alloys such as cobalt-chromium (CoCr) and Inconel 718, builds on the existing M Line 4 × 400 W architecture, with more materials in development.

With 2.5 times higher laser power, the 1 kW model is aimed at customers trying to produce complex, regulated components faster, including turbine hardware and structural engine parts. Meanwhile, it keeps quality intact in the most sensitive areas of a build.

“The M Line 4 × 1 kW system allows manufacturers to accelerate productivity without sacrificing quality,” said Philipp Schumann, product manager for the M Line. “It meets the rising demand, especially in highly regulated industries, for faster, more cost-effective production by combining precision where it matters most with efficiency across the rest of the part.”

The company states that the new M Line lets manufacturers combine speed and precision in a single build. The higher-power lasers can print faster in non-critical areas, while standard parameters are used in sections that require tight control over microstructure, fatigue performance, or dimensional accuracy.

The M Line machine is delivered with WRX3 software for controlling the machine, preparing builds, setting parameters, and monitoring performance. At the same time, the machine exposes its data streams (sensor output, operational metrics, build parameters) via an OPC UA interface, so that external systems can tap into the data for analytics, traceability, quality assurance, and integration into broader factory workflows.

For companies in aerospace and defense, this is a key feature because qualification of parts often requires not only that the parts meet mechanical standards, but also that the process, parameters, machine history, sensor logs, and build environment are documented and traceable. Having open software and open data stream access helps make that feasible.

Colibrium continues to push the M Line’s modular design as a key advantage. The system separates the Laser Processing System (LPS) from the Material Handling Station (MHS), allowing pre- and post-processing steps to run at the same time rather than stopping production between jobs.

This setup helps cut downtime caused by powder handling and extraction, which are bottlenecks that often slow down serial production in metal PBF.

And while the M Line news grabbed attention on the laser-PBF side, Colibrium also took advantage of the momentum of Formnext week to spotlight AIM Sweden. This long-time electron beam partner has recently expanded its production line with the Spectra L system and Point Melt technology.

AIM, spun out of Mid Sweden University’s Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion (EB-PBF) research group, has become one of Europe’s most advanced industrial EB-PBF production shops. The company started in medical implants, a space traditionally dominated by laser machines, but has grown into a multi-sector manufacturer producing everything from spine implants to compressor impellers for carbon-capture systems.

AIM installed a new Spectra L system (Colibrium’s flagship EB-PBF platform) earlier this year, adding to its EB-PBF fleet and accelerating its shift into multi-sector industrial production.

“The Spectra L opens up new cost and design advantages,” said Simon Blomé, AIM’s Director of Industrial Applications. “The platform offers higher productivity, improved surface quality, and capabilities for reactive alloys. We can run multiple small builds on top of each other using the plate-free start. It is like having several printers in one system.”

Central to AIM’s ramp-up is Colibrium’s Point Melt technology, a point-by-point EB-PBF melting strategy that replaces the traditional line-scanning approach.

AIM CEO Göran Elovsson says the combination of the Spectra platform and Point Melt has changed how the company decides between L-PBF and EB-PBF.

“Electron beam powder bed fusion was regarded as a niche in the past, but with Colibrium’s Spectra platform, our internal discussions about whether to go with L-PBF or EB-PBF are over,” he said. “EB-PBF is opening doors to applications we couldn’t pursue before.”

With the 1 kW M Line, Colibrium wants to push metal AM out of R&D and into real industrial production, aiming at manufacturers that need reliable, repeatable builds at scale.