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The US is at the forefront of consumer and industrial digital fabrication with 3D printers, cncs, and laser cutters which take an incredible amount of knowledge to build and improve upon. I somewhat work in the field and I've yet to see really strong contenders in Asia or Europe have the sheer variety of commercial production systems that can compete.
Are there any under-the-radar systems to worry about here from other countries? I know reprap is open sourced but I haven't seen a company pounce on the thing the way Makerbot and other American companies have done so, and there is the advantage for us as the source materials and documentation are in English. Is this phase of manufacturing squarely in the US for development or are there other foreign contenders who are on the horizon?
Does the default language for these things skew towards the US enough anyway where it doesn't matter where the next big innovation occurs in this field as it will occur in English anyway such as what happened with Ruby in terms of programming and web development despite Ruby being created by a Japanese programmer in Japan?
Concept Laser GmbH (based in Bavaria) seems like a fairly big "player" in the industrial printing market. But it's a young industry, so it's hard to predict who will end up dominating the market.
I believe things will follow as they always have when it comes to production machinery. The American companies will innovate, while the Japanese will perfect. Of course, the Chinese will reverse engineer what they can, providing cheap, knock off equipment for the penny punchers the world over.
3D printing is the next horizon, but things don't appear to be changing as rapidly as people suggest. The tech has been around for decades, yet it still feels like it's in its infancy. At the end of the day, companies are manufacturing goods with the technology they have at their disposal. Until someone or something gives them a reason to invest in this new tech, they'll keep utilizing more conventional means of production.
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