Agentic AI in medicine supports multitasking across clinical tools, data and workflows to improve decision-making and efficiency. Credit: Volodymyr Horbovyy / Shutterstock

Hospitals are beginning to bring manufacturing to the bedside. Point-of-care 3D printing enables the production of patient-specific devices - anatomical models, prosthetics, and surgical guides - directly from imaging data. Where once creating a model could take days, AI-powered segmentation now converts DICOM scans into ready-to-print designs within hours, giving surgeons more time to plan and patients a more precise treatment. 

The clinical benefits are clear. 3D-printed anatomical models reduce surgery times by an average of 7.8%, contributing to smoother procedures and fewer complications. Hospitals report savings of around $3,720 for each surgical case, driven by lower procurement costs and reduced revision rates.

“One minute in the operating theatre costs roughly €60” notes Dr Ryan, Head of Department at Rady Children’s Hospital. Material efficiency adds further value: additive workflows reduce waste by 60- compared with subtractive methods, reinforcing sustainability and cost containment.

These workflows bypass external suppliers, compressing design-to-delivery cycles and embedding manufacturing directly into clinical decision-making. “Once clinicians see the benefits, including better understanding, confident planning and cost savings, they’re on board,” says Celine Austrheim Krefting, 3D Lab Lead at Oslo University Hospital. This pattern is now widely observed across mature labs in Europe and North America, reflecting a structural shift in how hospitals manufacture and use medical devices.

As hospital-based additive manufacturing matures, Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) has emerged as a standard for rapid, high-throughput production. In this powder-bed fusion process, a thin polymer layer is treated with fusing and detailing agents before infrared exposure. Unlike laser-based systems, MJF fuses entire layers simultaneously, producing uniform mechanical properties, isotropic strength and significantly faster build speeds. Independent benchmarks report part accuracy within ±0.3 mm, tensile strength comparable to injection-moulded plastics (48 MPa for PA-12) and production speeds up to ten times faster than with conventional laser sintering. 

Hospitals primarily use bio-based PA11 for flexible surgical guides, PA12 for stable medical components and TPU for soft, tactile anatomical models. At Rady Children’s Hospital, colour-enabled MJF systems based within surgery units support daily manufacture of complex, colour-accurate, anatomical models. This ability shortens operating theatre times and improves multidisciplinary planning, translating industrial speed into measurable clinical and economic gains. 

While MJF emphasises throughput, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) remains the standard for patient-specific devices requiring mechanical strength and long-term stability. SLS uses a high-power CO₂ or fibre laser to fuse polymer powder layer by layer, creating dense, mechanically robust parts without support structures. 

Modern medical SLS platforms achieve tensile strengths above 45 MPa, with isotropic behaviour and dimensional repeatability compatible with regulated production. FDA-cleared workflows, such as 3D Systems’ VSP^® Orthopaedics for total ankle replacement, demonstrate the technology’s suitability for compliant, point-of-care manufacturing. Since 2023, over 175,000 SLS-printed surgical guides have been deployed worldwide, confirming both clinical adoption and industrial-scale reproducibility. “3D Systems helps surgeons perform procedures more efficiently”, notes Gautam Gupta, General Manager, Medical Devices at 3D Systems. 

With validated workflows now established, hospital-based 3D printing is spreading worldwide. Over 100 hospitals in the United States now operate internal 3D printing laboratories, reflecting the institutionalisation of on-site production in both academic and regional centres. Europe has followed a coordinated adoption trajectory, guided by EU regulatory frameworks, with Germany, the UK, France, and the Nordic countries leading expansion. In Asia-Pacific, growth is rapid but concentrated in tertiary referral centres responding to surgical demand and national innovation programmes. 

Beyond high-income regions, decentralised manufacturing addresses structural access gaps. In Kenya, an HP MJF-based prosthetics programme delivers functional sockets in under 48 hours, dramatically reducing waiting times in remote areas. These cases illustrate how hospital-based manufacture advances both efficiency and equity in healthcare.

As adoption spreads globally, hospitals are leveraging AI to optimise workflows and maximise clinical impact. Belfast-based Axial3D offers a cloud-based AI segmentation service, allowing hospitals to generate printable models without extensive in-house expertise. “Our AI algorithm analyses DICOM data, making initial predictions before expert refinement”, explains Marissa Hight, Senior Medical Visualisation Engineer at Axial3D. “We’ve created a cost-effective and accessible method for hospitals”, adds CEO Daniel Crawford.

In the UK, Newcastle Hospitals’ in-house 3D printing lab has become a national standard for complex spine deformities. AI-enabled design and on-site manufacturing reduce surgery times by up to 120 minutes, saving approximately £8,000 per case. Materialise’s Mimics suite integrates AI segmentation, extended-reality visualisation and workflow management in a single hospital-ready platform. Being used at Oslo University Hospital, it helped overcome early clinician scepticism, delivering predictable cost savings and greater surgical confidence, illustrating AI’s role as both technical enabler and catalyst for institutional change.

On-site manufacturing is riding a strong wave of economic momentum. The global healthcare 3D printing market reached USD 2.32 billion in 2025 and is projected to exceed USD 10 billion by 2034, with compound annual growth rates near 20%. North America leads adoption, accounting for roughly 43% of revenues, followed by Europe, while Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region. 

“On-site manufacturing is becoming a strategic asset rather than a technical experiment”, notes Krefting. Scaling production still demands investment in training, digital infrastructure and regulatory expertise. Yet adoption appears irreversible: once surgeons witness faster planning and predictable outcomes, uptake accelerates organically. By 2026, hospital-based additive manufacturing is no longer peripheral; it has become a structural pillar of med-tech delivery.

Australia could be one of the main beneficiaries of this dramatic increase in demand, where private companies and local governments alike are eager to expand the country’s nascent rare earths production. In 2021, Australia produced the fourth-most rare earths in the world. It’s total annual production of 19,958 tonnes remains significantly less than the mammoth 152,407 tonnes produced by China, but a dramatic improvement over the 1,995 tonnes produced domestically in 2011.

The dominance of China in the rare earths space has also encouraged other countries, notably the US, to look further afield for rare earth deposits to diversify their supply of the increasingly vital minerals. With the US eager to ringfence rare earth production within its allies as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, including potentially allowing the Department of Defense to invest in Australian rare earths, there could be an unexpected windfall for Australian rare earths producers.