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THE NAI PROFILE 443

amazing elastomers for athletic footwear all the way
to high-temperature materials used in demanding
applications in aerospace and medical that are rigid
and sterilizable. Some even have flame retardancy
for use in some really demanding application spaces.
So, at Carbon, it’s hardware, it’s software, it’s res-
ins. The M1 itself is internet-connected and streams
a lot of data back to us on an ongoing basis, which
helps us constantly to improve how our technology
works for our customers and partners. This ushers
in a whole new frontier of how people make things
with equipment that gets better with time. We push
features to the printer itself, doing software upgrades
every six or seven weeks, and, with those software
upgrades, machine performance continues to get
better. We can add new resins easily and give people
the power to use new resins and new features.
We’re really a data-centric company, and this also
shifts the whole concept of provenance associated
with parts. The idea that when people make a part
using our technology, we know all the born-on data,
all the conditions of the printer when a given part was
made—how it was printed, which lot, which resins,
which specific machine, which processing equipment
was used to bake it—this allows us to raise the bar on
authenticity of parts and part quality. We think people
and businesses around the world are really going to
love having data to track parts that are serialized, all
the way back to a part’s origin. From a product safety
and liability point of view, it’s a pretty amazing shift
that ushers in new business models. Just look at recent
cases of companies not knowing which cars contain
terrible, defective air impact bags. We’re talking about
hundreds of thousands, even millions, of cars. What
a mess that is! The idea that we can change this kind
of scenario through digital and additive by having a
unique identifier on every part—we’re going to open
up new business models.
T&I: So, really, this technology is going to be a
breeding ground for complementary technologies—
hardware, software, materials etc.

DeSimone: Yes, it’s a zero to one innovation in the Figure 1. Since the date of this interview with Dr. DeSimone
Peter Thiel vernacular, with a whole bunch of cas- (February 9, 2017), Carbon has released another printer, the
M2 (pictured here), that builds on the M1’s capabilities. The M2
cading inventions that pile up on top of it. It really features twice the build volume as the M1, allowing for larger
opens up a new vista of opportunities. parts, higher throughput, and lower part cost. (photo courtesy
of Carbon, Inc.)