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- Russia's largest electron beam 3D printer can weld titanium for rockets and reactors
- The printer will be shipped to a secret location in India, costing about Rs 20 crore
- Russia's Rosatom State Corporation said the 3D printer can print anything except money
Did our AI summary help? Let us know. Switch To Beeps Mode Moscow: In the heart of Moscow, inside the high-security halls of Rosatom Additive Technologies, a revolution is quietly unfolding-one that could redefine how the world builds its rockets, reactors, and perhaps even its future. Towering over engineers and gleaming under industrial lights stands Russia's largest electron beam 3D printer. It doesn't just print-it welds, sculpts, and forges titanium into precision components that power space missions and nuclear reactors. Russia is a known world leader in additive printing-- or what we popularly call 3D printing.
"These 3D printing units are so advanced that they can print anything except currency notes, which only the federal bank does," said Ilya Vladimirovich Kavelashvili, Director, Additive Manufacturing Business Unit at Rosatom State Corporation in Moscow.
This isn't science fiction. It's the new frontier of manufacturing, and New Delhi is stepping right into it. This very machine will soon be shipped to India.
Complex 3D printed titanium parts
Indian entities have already signed several multi-year framework dealer agreements for the supply of additive equipment and materials, with a total value of approximately 1.5 billion roubles. The printer that will be shipped to India--to a secret, undisclosed location--will cost about Rs 20 crores.
Kavelashvili said soon the Russian printer will be 'making in India' under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for localising high technology.
Using the printer, a simple titanium or stainless wire can be processed, and high-power electron beams can be converted into complex components that are hard to manufacture.
Complex parts can be made with 3D printers using lasers and computer-controlled robots.
But what makes 3D printing technology so transformative? Well, the traditional metalworking relies on subtractive methods-cutting, grinding, and shaping metal blocks using lathe machines. While effective, this approach is slow, wasteful, and limited in design complexity.
Meanwhile, 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, flips the paradigm. It builds objects layer by layer using powdered metals or titanium wire, guided by digital blueprints. This allows for the creation of complex geometries that would be impossible to achieve with traditional machining alone. It also leaves minimal waste, as only the required material is used. In rapid prototyping, the technology can reduce development cycles from months to days.
Advanced 3D technologies, like laser melting and electron beam melting, fuse metal particles at microscopic precision, producing a product of superior strength, reduced porosity, and enhanced thermal resistance-critical for space and nuclear applications.
NDTV's Science Editor Pallava Bagla with Titanium wires and 3D printed parts in front of the Rosatom high-tech printer that will be shipped to India
At the opening of this facility in 2020, Alexey Likhachev, Director General of Rosatom, said, "It is fundamentally important that it is the first such facility in Russia operating Russian-made equipment. All of it was developed by our engineers. The equipment of the 3D-printers was manufactured, and the complete machines have been assembled locally, and they run on Russian software."
Forging Titanium Threads of Friendship
India and Russia have long been strategic partners, but this collaboration marks a new chapter. From the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant-where Rosatom has supplied the entire nuclear plant and continues to support India's atomic energy ambitions to the skies above, where ISRO rockets may soon carry Russian-printed components, the partnership is evolving from transactional to transformational. India and Russia are old friends, and this will help forge and weld the partnership even more.
In a world where currency is often metaphorical, Rosatom's additive technology facility is printing something far more valuable-trust, innovation, and the future.
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