AM I Navigator and Leading Minds Form Additive Manufacturing Alliance at AMS

AM I Navigator and Leading Minds announced they have joined under a new umbrella, the Additive Manufacturing Alliance, at the Additive Manufacturing Strategies conference in New York City on February 26, 2026 to accelerate the industrial adoption of additive manufacturing. The Alliance was presented as a coordinated effort to bring together the awareness work of Leading Minds with the implementation framework of AM I Navigator, with initial joint activities scoped to knowledge exchange, joint industry communications, and support for companies industrializing AM.

Brigitte de Vet‑Veithen, Chief Executive Officer of Materialise, framed the Alliance as a practical tool for manufacturers at the AMS stage announcement where she appeared onstage alongside Karsten Heuser, Vice President Additive Manufacturing at Siemens. “Our shared goal is to make additive manufacturing more accessible, less complex, and more integrated into everyday industrial production. Together, we can help more companies across a wider variety of industries benefit from the flexibility, efficiency, and innovation that AM enables,” she said in Materialise’s press release and during the live announcement.

The partnership was explicitly positioned as an umbrella organization that will not subsume either initiative. Materialise and other coverage stated that Leading Minds and AM I Navigator will collaborate on selected joint activities while continuing to operate independently where appropriate, allowing both groups to preserve existing programs while aligning on targeted outreach and implementation projects.

Initial activities were described in practical terms: knowledge exchange between the initiatives, coordinated industry messaging, and direct support to companies moving from pilots to production. Coverage highlighted the strategic connection to “connect awareness with execution,” with Leading Minds focusing on building understanding and reducing confusion around AM and AM I Navigator supplying structured tools, real-world use cases, and transformation insights for scaling AM into serial production.

Standards engagement surfaced as an early priority with ASTM International represented in the announcement. Dr. Mohsen Seifi, Vice President of Global Advanced Manufacturing Programs at ASTM International, said, “By joining the AM I Navigator, we aim to contribute our experience in translating additive manufacturing standards into robust industrial practice. Together with the partner network, we want to help manufacturers accelerate the transition from experimentation to qualified, scalable production.”

The two constituent initiatives bring explicit provenance and overlapping memberships to the Alliance. AM I Navigator launched at Formnext 2023 with founding partners Siemens, DyeMansion, HP, BASF Forward AM, and EOS. Leading Minds launched in 2024 with founding members Ansys, EOS, HP, Materialise, Nikon SLM, Renishaw, Stratasys, and ATLIX. Coverage noted member overlap with EOS, HP, Materialise, and Siemens appearing across both initiatives and onstage for the AMS announcement.

Not all operational details were provided at AMS 2026. Coverage and the press release do not specify the Alliance’s governance structure, legal form, membership expansion rules, funding model, specific pilot projects, or timelines and measurable milestones. Those items remain follow-up questions for Alliance spokespeople from Materialise, Siemens, the AM I Navigator working group, and the Leading Minds consortium.

The announcement at AMS 2026, held February 24 to 26 in New York City, places the Additive Manufacturing Alliance as a coordinated industry push to move firms from awareness to execution; next steps announced for the near term are joint communications and knowledge exchange while governance, funding, and project specifics are expected to follow.