As additive manufacturing transforms industrial production, it is also reshaping how arms control practitioners think about proliferation, export controls, and technology governance. On 9 February, under the EU-funded Science and Technology Watchtower project, UNIDIR convened experts from across sectors to examine how additive manufacturing – also known as 3D printing – is changing the security landscape and what policy responses may be needed.
Additive manufacturing builds objects layer by layer from digital files, enabling complex geometries, part consolidation, and on-demand production that conventional methods cannot match. The global market has grown exponentially in the past decade. Today, defence applications of additive manufacturing focus primarily on sustainment, including the production of non-critical components, tooling and spare parts, as well as repair and maintenance applications.
During UNIDIR’s multistakeholder dialogue, speakers cautioned against overstating the technology’s current reach. Additive manufacturing contributes to weapon systems mainly at the subsystem or component level. It does not enable the production of complete weapon systems.
The more consequential issue is not what machines can manufacture, but how the technology enables decentralized production and the transfer of intangible assets.
This includes digital files and build parameters, which is inherently difficult to monitor and control.
A shifting risk landscape
Intangible technology transfers represent the most acute governance gap. Build files shared across jurisdictions as part of routine business processes can constitute export control violations, while challenging traditional mechanisms for monitoring and controlling sensitive technology transfers. Additional risks include cyber and data integrity threats, such as the subtle manipulation of build files – which can introduce latent part failures that evade conventional quality checks, as well as a growing number of non-traditional defence contractors unfamiliar with dual-use compliance obligations.
Looking ahead, participants at the event identified the convergence of additive manufaturing with artificial intelligence (AI) as a significant trend. AI is lowering skill barriers across all three verticals of the technology (materials, machines and software), expanding access while compounding traceability challenges. The speakers also emphasized the importance of addressing these risks while the technology remains in a relatively early stage of development, before governance challenges become more difficult to manage.
Current governance approaches
Export controls have been the primary governance response to additive manufacturing. While export control lists differ in terms of what they encompass, they broadly include goods, software and technical assistance. However, their application to intangible transfers remains inconsistent and difficult to enforce.
A common problem is the lack of shared interpretation on how controls apply to digital file transfers.
Enforcement capacity also lags: building prosecutable evidence for digital transfer cases, developing digital forensic capabilities, and developing specialized legal expertise remain challenges in most jurisdictions. Speakers at UNIDIR’s dialogue noted that foreign direct investment screening offers a useful complementary instrument, particularly given rapid company formation, failure and acquisiton in fast-growing sectors that adopt additive manufacturing technologies.
Towards proportionate governance
The event highlighted the need for clearer regulation and practical guidance, developed in consultation with industry rather than imposed through broad legal language in multilateral frameworks. Participants identified use-case differentiation as a more effective approach, rather than treating additive manufacturing as a single risk category.
Oversight should also be applied proportionally, according to the criticality and consequence of what is being produced. Standards, qualification pathways, and digital thread integrity frameworks can embed compliance expectations across the 3D printing ecosystem in a scalable way – making legitimate production verifiable through auditable build records without restricting general-purpose use.
Speakers also stressed that internationally recognized standards can help reduce regulatory fragmentation by providing common technical approaches across jurisdictions, even where national regulatory frameworks differ.
Across all recommendations, a recurring message was the need for continuous, technically informed multistakeholder dialogue as the technology evolves.
UNIDIR’s Science and Technology Watchtower project aims to contribute to this awareness-raising effort, and this dialogue marked a step towards bringing additive manufacturing governance onto the arms control community’s agenda. Previous events under the project’s umbrella have explored issues surrounding quantum technologies, uncrewed systems, cybersecurity, AI and the Biological Weapons Convention, and more.