Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

The development of 3D printing technology has moved quickly in China, with the adoption of relevant technologies and applications expanding to a wide range of areas. However, this rapid growth should not obscure the fact that China still lags behind Western countries in this area.

The enthusiasm for 3D printing across the country can be seen in the greater availability of desktop 3D printers at numerous educational institutions. At a conservative estimate, roughly 1,000 schools in the country, mostly primary and middle schools, have purchased desktop 3D printers this year for the establishment of 3D printing classrooms.

Desktop 3D printers require a relatively small amount of investment, unlike industrial 3D printers and 3D bio-printers. This, coupled with open source contributions that help to make the technology more publicly accessible, has lured swarms of companies into the 3D printing business.

Competition in this niche market, in which China is trying to narrow the technology gap with advanced countries such as the US, has therefore become white-hot, and a price war has started. Looking ahead, a substantial fall in prices of both desktop 3D printers and the materials available for 3D printing, as well as further improvements in the printers' design and functionality, will drive potential mass use of 3D printing technology in households and schools. 

Meanwhile, China's use of 3D printing technologies at an industrial level and in biomedicine still lags far behind that in the US and some European countries, despite some groundbreaking advances made by a few domestic Chinese companies and research institutions.

Industrial 3D printing seems to be gaining in popularity, with a new trend becoming visible: a shift toward printing with metal materials.

It is expected that over the next three years individual metal products could be directly 3D printed, as the new trend evolves.

A rising number of domestic companies are trying out metal 3D printing, but not many of them are equipped with strong technological power or enough capital for them to catch up with their foreign counterparts. If this challenge is not addressed, the country may be left behind in an industry trend that is set to become universally adopted in the next five to 10 years.

There is also bio-printing to consider, the new frontier in both medicine and 3D printing, which enables production of human tissue replicas ranging from teeth to vital organs.

China is in a stronger position in this area, with enviable results from a few pioneers.

For instance, Sichuan Revotek Co, a Chengdu-based biotechnical company, announced in late October that it had developed a 3D blood vessel bio-printer, the first in the world to make personalized functional organs. Additionally, a research team at Hangzhou Electronic Science and Technology University announced earlier in October that tiny sections of liver had been produced using a special 3D printer designed by the team.

The announcements hint at the promising prospects for the new technology in China. According to a forecast by research consultancy IDTechEx, the market for 3D printing is set to hit $7 billion globally by 2025, with that for bio-printing set to be worth $3 billion. China will undoubtedly be a vital market for the new technology, given the size of its economy and its population.

However, the country also faces challenges in bio-printing, as it requires long-term investment and abundant technological expertise, both of which are somewhat lacking in China's 3D printing sector. Also, for bio-printed human tissue to be genuinely used in the real world, the country still needs to make considerable efforts, just like other countries, to develop an efficient oversight framework for the use of 3D-printed artificial tissue.

Still, there has been a flurry of documents released by the Chinese government this year that attached great importance to development of 3D printing. For example the "Made in China 2025" national plan will promote a new era of manufacturing in the world's second-largest economy, which is ready to embrace the disruptive technological change to come.

The author is secretary-general of the World 3D Printing Technology Industry Alliance. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn