EOS is steadily establishing itself as an expert in developing dual-use technologies. Now, as I mentioned in a recent interview with Greg Hayes, the Senior VP Global Additive Minds at EOS, ‘dual-use’ is a term that has become overused to the point that many observers these days rightly question whether it even still means anything.

But I think that this January 2025 article from the defense news publication War on the Rocks explains the term perfectly, and encapsulates why it matters despite its overuse:

The authors explain, “Our experience from MIT, working with startups across a range of critical technologies exploring defense and commercial civilian markets, is to define dual-use as a strategy, not a category. …early stage founders build a capability and, as good entrepreneurs, consider the best market fit across commercial and military markets as necessary and with a clear focus.”

EOS is of course not an early stage company, but the point applies nonetheless. It’s relevant here because the US-German brand has clearly released its latest product, the EOS M4 ONYX metal additive manufacturing (AM) system, with a dual-use strategy in mind.

EOS launched the M4 ONYX at Formnext 2025 in Frankfurt this week, after developing the printer with extensive, wide-ranging input from the company’s user-base built into the design. This is a running theme for EOS, which emphasized the same responsiveness to its customers in its launch of the P3 NEXT SLS printer at last year’s Formnext.

And, to be sure, this is a running theme in the AM industry, as a whole. The main thing that sets EOS apart here is simply that they have such a lengthy track record with unusually adept users to draw from.

That really comes into focus when you think about the M4 ONYX by comparison with its predecessors: the printers in the M400 series, the first of which originally launched a little over a decade ago. In those days, barely anyone knew what 3D printing was, let alone that you could 3D print metal, and selling machines largely meant selling new users on the idea of the technology itself.

That’s still the case to no small degree. But for a machine like the M4 ONYX, specifically — which EOS plans to start shipping in Q1 of next year — it’s hard to imagine that the buyers will be anyone other than serious power-users with years of metal AM experience. Thus, the decade of buildup with the M400 series was required for EOS to even create a machine like this.

The key selling point is a lowered total cost of ownership (TCO). That’s how Sebastian Becker, EOS’s Head of Product Management for Metal Solutions, framed the system to me, in a discussion before Formnext:

“The main aim of selling this machine is to deliver the best return on the best product in its category,” Becker asserted. “We are reducing [TCO] by up to 50 percent, increasing productivity by up to 50 percent, and increasing machine utilization and machine availability by up to 30 percent each.

“These are the numbers that we targeted after discussing with our M400-4 customers, and reaching a consensus on the improvements they wanted to see.”

To achieve the productivity gains, EOS significantly increased the build volume compared to the M400-4 (450 “x 450″ x 360″ vs. 400″ x 400″ x 400”), and added two 400-watt lasers. EOS also focused obsessively on maximizing the efficiency of the print process: the company claims that customers can expect “more than 90% powder material recovery,” while also reducing hazardous waste “by up to 90%” with the Recirculation Filtration System (RFS) Pro feature.

Further, thanks to some important collaborations, EOS is delivering automated powder handling (through a partnership with Volkmann) and automated job exchanges (through a partnership with Grenzebach). And the company’s own existing capabilities, including EOS Smart Fusion, enable users to minimize the need for supports.

As Becker told me, all of these features naturally evolved from what has worked with prior EOS releases:

“The powder handling and the dual setup station with the two exchangeable frames was developed on the M400-4 already,” Becker noted. “Those functions matured, and we transferred them to the M4 ONYX. Same with the optical tomography in Smart Fusion, which was originally developed on the M290, then brought to the M400-4, and improved to be optimized for new materials.

“So now we have all of these capabilities that have been tested that we’ve brought to the M4 ONYX, and work for titanium, nickel, steel, and aluminum alloys. We can see all the puzzle pieces coming together with this machine.”

Becker told me that EOS already has orders for the machine, as well as a beta user, though he wasn’t able to disclose who that was. But, given how much the M4 ONYX seems to draw from what customers of EOS sister company AMCM would want, I think we can assume that the new machine was made precisely for enterprises like U.S. Navy contractors, the Ursa Majors of the world, and companies whose offerings have equal applicability to defense and civilian markets, like heat exchanger specialist Conflux Technology.

Maximizing the uptime of manufacturing enterprises is the main thing that the AM industry can bring to the table in a dual-use context. That’s what EOS is offering with the M4 ONYX.

And, very soon, users producing for both defense and civilian customers will be able purchase an even more powerful version of the machine: in Q3 of next year, the company will be releasing the M4 ONYX FLX, which will feature four 1kw lasers capable of beam-shaping, thanks to EOS’s partnership with nLight. These days, it’s not easy to make something that’s both truly new, and also responds directly to what the market wants. EOS may be successfully threading that needle with its latest launch.

Images courtesy of EOS