Divergent Details Its Plan to Replace Nikon SLM Printers With Monolith One

Divergent plans to phase out Nikon SLM printers for its own Monolith One

Divergent Technologies is not rushing to replace its fleet of Nikon SLM Solutions printers, but the company now has a timeline for doing exactly that. CEO Lukas Czinger told TCT Magazine that existing production programs on the NXG XII 600 machines will run to completion before the systems shift to materials development and eventually yield to Divergent's own Monolith One platform.

This is a significant moment for the metal additive manufacturing industry. Divergent, a contract manufacturer best known for its work with defense and automotive customers, spent 28 months developing Monolith One in-house. The 12-laser powder bed fusion system delivers 24kW of laser power across a 700 x 700 x 835 mm build volume. Six units are already installed at Divergent's Torrance, California headquarters. Another 64 will come online at a new 430,000-square-foot Long Beach factory over the next two years.

The NXG XII 600 fleet will stay in production through current programs. Divergent is printing missile airframes and automotive parts on the Nikon systems right now. Changing machines mid-program would disrupt delivery schedules and add unnecessary risk. Once those programs finish, the NXG systems will support new alloy development before being replaced.

Czinger was direct about the long-term direction. Over a medium horizon, as customer programs migrate to Monolith One, the NXG printers will be phased out. Divergent still sees Nikon SLM as a partner and intends to manage the transition carefully. But the company's future manufacturing capacity will run on its own hardware, built around its own software-defined manufacturing platform.

The strategic logic is clear. Vertical integration gives Divergent control over throughput, cost structure, and intellectual property. Monolith One is not commercially available for purchase or license. It exists solely to support Divergent's own production programs. That focus allows the company to optimize every design choice for volume manufacturing of critical hardware.

For Nikon SLM Solutions, losing a customer that develops its own competing systems is a setback. Divergent was a visible reference account for the NXG XII 600, one of the most capable large-format metal printers on the market. The NXG XII 600 will remain relevant for shops that need proven, commercially available LPBF capability. But the message from Divergent is that high-volume defense and automotive production is moving toward vertically integrated, proprietary systems.

When fully online, the Long Beach factory will have the capacity to deliver tens of thousands of missile airframes or hundreds of thousands of critical piece parts per year. That scale demands hardware built for continuous operation, designed around specific alloys and part geometries. Divergent believes Monolith One is that machine.