Why combine artificial intelligence and 3D printing?

Nowadays, we’ve noticed buzzwords such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain or Industry 4.0 being increasingly used and thrown around. In themselves, these technologies can have and are having a huge impact on today’s economy and existing production systems. But what about the fact that these new technologies – often described as disruptive – could be combined? Then, will there be completely new, previously unimaginable possibilities?

What interests us above all is of course the combination of these technologies with additive manufacturing. In this piece we explore the link between artificial intelligence and 3D printing. The aim is to understand what possibilities exist when these two technologies are combined, what benefits can be gained? What limitations may remain?

Many new technologies are disrupting current manufacturing techniques

First of all, let’s look at the term artificial intelligence. Dr. Thomas Wilde, mainly active as an entrepreneur and investor, especially in the field of AI software solutions gave us a definition: “AI as a discipline initially includes all the processes that help machines to perceive, think and act like humans. As a result, we are dealing with a very wide range of linguistic processes, image processing, but also processes in the fields of motor skills and robotics“. In our daily lives, it is mainly found in the media and electronics – your smartphone, for example, is able to recognize your face or has a voice assistant that obeys to your voice: Alexa from Amazon, Siri on Apple, Google Now, etc.