EOS grows in the Belgian-German “cœur” of 3D printing in Europe

Two recent equipment investments trace a line between the two countries that anchor much of Europe’s metal additive manufacturing industry. Belgium’s reputation rests mostly on its service providers, companies that print parts for others rather than build the machines themselves, while Germany is home to EOS itself and much of the region’s AM hardware base, alongside a services layer of its own that keeps growing. Two new EOS installations, one in each country, show both halves of that picture at the same time.

AnyShape, based in Villiers-le-Bouillet in Wallonia, has added two EOS M 400-4 systems to expand its metal additive manufacturing capacity for aerospace and defense programs. Each machine carries four 400 W lasers and a 400 x 400 x 400 mm build volume, sized for productivity, repeatability, and the production of large, complex metal components. The two systems are configured to support several ongoing aerospace and defense programs, with dedicated capability for aluminum alloys including Scalmalloy, titanium alloys for large and high-performance components, and industrial production requiring consistent, repeatable quality, and both machines are currently going through qualification with several OEM customers.

Founded in 2016 by two material scientists, AnyShape holds ISO 9001, EN 9100, and ISO 13485 accreditations for metal, plastic, and composite additive manufacturing and counts Airbus Group, Airbus Defense and Space, Safran Group, ArianeGroup, OHB, Thales, Sonaca, SABCA, and ESA among its customers. The company was selected by Airbus Defense and Space earlier this year to produce structural mechanical components in Scalmalloy, one of the applications the new EOS systems are intended to support. The investment extends AnyShape’s position as a one-stop additive manufacturing partner covering design, process development, production, post-processing, and inspection.

Materialise, headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, operates the largest single-site capacity of AM equipment in Europe and has made its own EOS investment, a sign of how closely the two countries’ AM service capacity is intertwined. Materialise plans to bring an EOS M4 Onyx online at its Metal Competence Center in Bremen by the end of the year. The M4 Onyx, EOS’s successor to the M 400 and M 400-4 platforms launched at Formnext 2025, runs six 400 W fiber lasers across a 450 x 450 x 400 mm build volume, and EOS says the configuration delivers up to 50% higher throughput and 30% lower part costs than its predecessor. Materialise said the added capacity and precision will let it continue delivering series production applications at scale for aerospace, defense, and other industrial customers, alongside a metal 3D printing service that spans the full workflow from ideation to finished part, including design and engineering support, EN 9100-certified production, and post-production options.

Together, the two investments show the region’s shape: Belgian service providers driving demand for large-format, multi-laser metal systems and Germany supplying both the hardware itself, through EOS, and a growing share of the services built on top of it. Together, the two countries are becoming the practical center of gravity for metal AM production in Europe.