Last month I wrote about the Chinese laser brand HG Laser and how its increasing focus on metal additive manufacturing (AM) demonstrates that Chinese AM companies benefit from having to survive in a domestic market characterized by hyper-intense competition.This week, I wrote about EPlus3D and its announcement that it has already booked 50,000 orders for components used in cooling AI data centers.Around the same time as the EPlus3D announcement, Jingye Future Smart Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Chinese steelmaker Jingye Group, announced plans for a $700 million facility with 20 production lines and 400 metal 3D printers.
It will be dedicated to smartphone components and other parts related to electronics and AI infrastructure.This aligns with everything China has been signaling in terms of how its latest Five Year Plan overlaps with its advanced manufacturing strategy.Additionally, it reinforces the idea that robust competition, rather than adherence to a Western-style national champion model, is what drives Chinese success in manufacturing, including its success in the AM industry.
In the post about EPlus3D, I noted that, based on the production capacity of the partner that EPlus3D mentioned in its data center infrastructure announcement, the company must have additional manufacturing partners lined up, or else it’s already facing a serious backlog.Jingye Future Smart Manufacturing has been a customer of EPlus3D for years, suggesting that at least some significant chunk of the production capacity at the new facility will come from EPlus3D.Among other players in the Chinese market, this may present the most direct challenge to BLT, which has prioritized perfecting the development of hinges for foldable smartphones.
However, as I noted in my previous post about EPlus3D, pretty much the entire Chinese metal AM market is organizing itself around the goal of producing for the “3C” market: computers, communications, and consumer electronics.That is, in fact, a sign of China’s domestic competition strategy working effectively in the context of metal AM.The Chinese government — and, more importantly in terms of where policy originates in China, the CPC — seems to care far less about which Chinese company emerges as the winner of a given target market, so long as the leaders in the market are based in China.
As I wrote with regard to HG Laser, while this is certainly an advantage for Chinese industry, overall, it’s hard to call it an advantage in the conventional sense for an individual Chinese company.At the level of the firm, you might say that it’s an advantage in the same way that tough love is a form of love.Against this background, the key takeaway concerning Jingye Group’s plans, specifically, is that a massive steel conglomerate views a $700 million investment in metal AM and MIM capacity dedicated to the 3C market as a worthwhile project.
For one thing, it’s always legitimizing to the AM industry to have such a large enterprise endorse the technology at this scale.Even more significantly, though, it illustrates how the driver’s seat in the AM market may be shifting, at least somewhat, from OEMs to services and materials.I discussed this in the context of the US AM industry recently when ADDMAN and 6K Additive announced a multi-year powder supply agreement.
On that subject, it didn’t occur to me to point out that OEMs should actually welcome the thought of other portions of the AM industry taking the wheel.That’s a necessary consequence of real growth of AM adoption! Too many Western AM OEMs seem like they’re perfectly content to be big fish in a small pond, and may actually be frightened of the possibility that the pond may indeed grow.That’s not the basis for a winning philosophy, but we shouldn’t worry too much about it, because in due time the market will weed out those companies, in any case.
But for everyone who’s up to the challenge of increasing their market share in a market that is, itself, growing, prioritizing the growth of all the companies outside the OEM category appears to be a vital component of succeeding at that challenge.Images courtesy of Jingye AM Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.Print Services Upload your 3D Models and get them printed quickly and efficiently.
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