CES Gives Us Industrial Innovation

Welcome to the Industrial Innovation Advocate. We're back to our regular programming of advanced manufacturing and industrial technology news and marketing observations. But Friday morning got away from me so I'm giving you reading for MLK Day instead. This issue, we look at industrial innovation news from CES, TSMC's new fab in Arizona, and an instructive look at indutrial 3D printing sales in Q3.

Industrial Innovation at CES

CES is not an "industrial" show per se. Nevertheless, it's a valuable platform for sharing any sort of world-changing AI and metaverse advances, which is just what NVIDIA and Siemens did.

NVIDIA announced GenAI models and blueprints intended to expand NVIDIA Omniverse integration further into physical AI applications, including robotics and vision AI. For example, the company announced availability of microservices for generating or searching for OpenUSD assets. OpenUSD is a Pixar-created open-source format for 3D objects, which could be used to build industrial worlds. Another NVIDIA model enables you to give these 3D assets physics or materials attributes. Companies like Volkswagen and German supply chain solutions company KION Group are early adopters.

New blueprints from NVIDIA include:

• Mega, for developing and testing robot fleets at scale in a warehouse or industrial factory digital twin before rolling them out in the real world
• Omniverse Spacial Streaming to Apple Vision Pro, for immersive streaming of large-scale industrial twins to Apple's mixed reality headset
• Real-Time Digital Twins for Computer Aided Engineering (CAE), which enables real-time physics visualization.

For its part, 西门子 announced availability of Teamcenter Digital Reality Viewer, the first Siemens Xcelerator application powered by NVIDIA Omniverse libraries. The idea is to be able to visualize and interact with physics-based digital twins of products so teams can iterate faster. It's hosted in a Siemens cloud-based environment and all 3D data is always real-time. It's all tightly integrated with the PLM system.

A Great Look at TSMC's Awe-Inspiring Arizona Fab

CNBC came out and paid a visit to the first of three semiconductor fabs from 台积公司 outside of Phoenix. When completed, the three facilities are expected to collectively cost somewhere around $65 billion. It's the first time TSMC is making its advanced chips in the U.S.

That said, according to Tom's Hardware , although the company is getting chip yields on 4nm chips comparable to Taiwan, they do cost more, and they charge more for "geographic flexibility." The publication indicates that Arizona chips are finding their way into Apple's iPhone 15 and 15 Plus and AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs, among others.

3D Printing Shipments Continue to Struggle

Chris Connery at CONTEXT has come out with his Q3 numbers for the 3D printing industry. The commercial-level systems continue to struggle, and categories like metal and Chinese-made are no longer immune. Read his complete analysis on LinkedIn here, but a taste:

• Industrial systems priced at $100k+ down 24%, with the Chinese market doing worst, down 37%.
• Vat Photopolymerization systems at the industrial price point down 30%, due mostly to dental. Material jetting down 43%.
• Industrial Powder Bed Fusion systems down 24%.
• Midrange systems collectively down 8%.

On the other hand, TRUMPF , Renishaw , and Eplus3D Additive Manufacturing , a Chinese-maker, saw industrial metal shipments increase. Renishaw, Eplus3D, and Nikon SLM Solutions reported revenue growth, with Nikon's large NXG machines really taking off. Midrange growth is coming from Chinese makers.

Of course, this is just system sales. Indications are that materials are holding up better, and service providers are generally showing growth. I'll get more insights from the Additive Manufacturing Strategies conference in New York next month but it's clear that vendors need to have a tight focus on delivering maximum and consistent value for specific applications and growth market segments like defense.

Stay warm.