3D printers (also known as three-dimensional printers) are rapid prototyping devices based on cumulative manufacturing technology. They directly generate three-dimensional objects by layering materials. The core technology can be traced back to photolithography in the United States in the late 19th century.
Invented by Enrico Dini, this device is mainly used in fields such as medicine and industrial design. Its core technologies include selective laser sintering (SLS) and digital projection (DLP). Rapid prototyping technology achieved breakthroughs in the 1980s, and SLS technology was patented in the mid-1980s. In 2016, the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a continuous printing DLP 3D printer with a speed of 600 mm/s, a hundred times faster than traditional processes.
In 2024, the University of Maine launched the world's largest polymer 3D printer, "Future Factory 1.0," capable of printing objects up to 96 feet long; in the same year, Huayang New Materials put into production China's first 1.5-meter-class fully independent SLM metal 3D printer [16-17]. A team at MIT developed a prototype chip-level 3D printer in 2025, using a photonic chip system to achieve nanometer-level precision resin curing.
On June 1, 2026, it was reported that in the first four months of 2026, China exported 2.46 million 3D printers, with an export value of 6.106 billion yuan, representing year-on-year increases of 100.3% and 110.4%, respectively. Shenzhen is a major 3D printer production base in China, accounting for nearly 90% of the global consumer-grade 3D printer market share. In the first four months of 2026, Shenzhen's 3D printer exports reached 5.24 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 128.6%, accounting for 85.8% of the total exports of similar products nationwide.
