Key takeaways
- On August 6, 2026, at the 6th Shenzhen International AIDC Liquid Cooling Summit, FASTFORM presented a full-stack “prototype to mass production” capability targeting the core pain points of high-power liquid cooling: long development cycles, constrained thermal performance, inconsistent mass production, and difficult scale-up.
- The company closed the full loop from process design → cost control → efficiency improvement → volume deployment, and drew serious partnership interest from upstream and downstream companies at the show.
- FASTFORM’s in-house green laser forming system breaks through the pure-copper printing barrier with metal energy absorptivity above 40%, supporting pure copper, graphene copper and diamond composite copper.
- Measured results: density stable at ≥ 99.8%, pure copper thermal conductivity ≥ 350 W/(m·K), graphene copper up to 400 W/(m·K).
- The ultra-thin fin process achieved a 0.1 mm minimum fin thickness and 0.07 mm minimum fin spacing — 30%+ more heat exchange area in the same volume and 30%+ higher cooling efficiency.
- With 3,000 machines deployed worldwide, FASTFORM now offers thousand-piece-grade stable delivery, and for small-to-medium liquid cooling batches the cost per part is already below conventional “skiving + brazing.”
- FASTFORM received the Best Liquid-Cooling Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment Supplier Innovation Award at the summit.
On August 6, at the 6th Shenzhen International AIDC Liquid Cooling Summit, FASTFORM presented its full-stack technical capability under the theme “Empowering High-Power Liquid Cooling with Additive Manufacturing: From Prototype to Mass Production.” The presentation went directly at the industry’s core pain points — long development cycles, limited thermal performance, poor mass-production consistency and hard-to-scale deployment — and set out the complete closed loop from process design and cost control to efficiency gains and volume deployment. The booth drew substantial in-depth partnership interest from companies across the supply chain and became one of the summit’s most heavily attended technical focal points.
01. Structure × Process: A Full-Stack Answer to Heat Exchange Capability
Exploding compute demand has made liquid cooling a necessity, while conventional processes remain shackled by manufacturing boundaries: fine microchannels and integrated complex flow channels simply cannot be realized, and thermal performance has already hit a process ceiling.
Metal 3D printing breaks through along the entire chain — from structural design down to the underlying process — and its forming precision far exceeds that of conventional manufacturing. That maximises the heat exchange potential of liquid cooling and offers the high-power liquid cooling industry a new route to a step-change in value.
1.1 Performance-led, structurally free
3D printing can integrally form bionic flow-disturbing structures, TPMS lattices and ultra-thin-fin composite internal channels, integrating multi-layer microchannels without any welding and substantially enlarging the heat exchange area. Flow-channel topology optimization evens out fluid velocity and eliminates local chip hot spots, achieving an optimal balance of flow resistance and cooling efficiency that conventional processes cannot reach.
FASTFORM displayed a range of pure-copper and graphene-copper integrated cold plate samples at the show, visually demonstrating the thermal advantages of wave-shaped bionic channels, gradient-density lattices and hybrid composite fin structures.
Structural design approaches demonstrated:
| Structure type | Design intent |
|---|---|
| Bionic (biomimetic) structures | Reduce flow resistance; even out flow velocity; enlarge the heat exchange area |
| TPMS structures | Uniform temperature and elimination of local hot spots; an effective balance point between heat dissipation and flow resistance |
| Fin and turbulence-pillar structures | Enlarge the heat exchange area; variable density to even out fluid flow as far as possible |
| Hybrid structure design | Combining the above into a single optimized geometry |
Source: FASTFORM presentation slide, “Additive Manufacturing: Structural Design.”
1.2 Breaking through the pure-copper printing barrier
FASTFORM’s independently developed green laser forming system pushes metal energy absorptivity above 40% and supports high-end thermally conductive materials including pure copper, graphene copper and diamond composite copper.
| Material / property | Performance |
|---|---|
| Printing density (stable) | ≥ 99.8% |
| Pure copper thermal conductivity | ≥ 350 W/(m·K) |
| Graphene copper thermal conductivity | up to 400 W/(m·K) |
This combination is purpose-built for ultra-high-power GPU liquid cooling.
AiForm-G1 — the green laser machine built for liquid cooling:
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Build volume | 140 × 140 × 180 mm (L × W × H) |
| Laser | 500 W |
| Computing power | 60 TFLOPS |
| Filter life | Permanent filter, service life ≥ 30,000 hours |
| Printing precision | 0.1 mm minimum thin wall; 0.07 mm minimum spacing |
| Layer thickness | 20–80 μm |
| Machine dimensions | 1,770 × 810 × 1,750 mm (L × W × H) |
Source: FASTFORM presentation slide, “AiForm-G1: A Green Laser Machine Built for Liquid Cooling.”
1.3 Ultra-thin fin process: 30%+ higher cooling efficiency
Through multiple rounds of fin process parameter iteration, FASTFORM achieved a breakthrough of 0.1 mm minimum fin thickness and 0.07 mm minimum fin spacing. At the same volume, the ultra-fine fin structure increases heat exchange area by more than 30%, effectively reducing the overall volume and weight of the cold plate — a fit for high-density servers, immersion two-phase liquid cooling, direct-to-chip cooling and other advanced scenarios.
| Comparison metric | FASTFORM | Industry average |
|---|---|---|
| Fin thickness | 0.1 mm | 0.2 mm |
| Fin spacing | 0.07 mm | 0.20–0.25 mm |
Technical significance: cooling efficiency improved by more than 30%; system volume and weight reduced; high-end application requirements met. Source: FASTFORM presentation slide, “Additive Manufacturing: Process Breakthrough” — fin thickness and fin spacing comparison, with SEM micrographs of 0.1 mm fins and 0.07 mm spacing versus a 0.3 mm reference.
Additive forming of a multi-layer microchannel cold plate:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Material | Pure copper |
| Fin thickness | 0.2 mm |
| Gap | 0.25 mm |
| Characteristic cross-section layers | 4 layers (in localized areas) |
Variable cross-section channels and complex fin manufacturing enable directional flow guiding, so the vertical layering and lateral flow distribution of two-phase liquid cooling no longer have to be compromised by manufacturing limits — genuinely enabling controllable phase change.
Process chain: manufacturability assessment → process validation → forming → powder removal → pressure test (30 bar). Source: FASTFORM presentation slide, “Additive Forming of Multi-Layer Microchannel Cold Plates.”
02. From Sample Parts to Mass Production: Closing the Liquid Cooling Scale-Up Loop
Drawing on the experience of 3,000 deployed machines, FASTFORM has overturned the assumption that “3D printing can only make samples, never production parts,” building a standardized, replicable system that closes the complete loop from digital design to finished-part inspection and delivery.
2.1 Batch consistency
FASTFORM has established a closed-loop quality control system covering raw materials, forming process, forming process monitoring and performance validation. Density and thermal performance variation across production batches is controllable, enabling stable delivery at the thousand-piece level.
The full L-PBF manufacturing process flow: process data and file preparation → raw material and equipment preparation → integrated additive forming → powder removal and support removal → heat treatment → wire cutting → finishing → quality inspection → packaging and warehousing.
Testing and verification system:
| Verification stage | Test items |
|---|---|
| Raw material performance | Chemical composition; apparent and tap density; flowability (Hall flow rate); particle size distribution; sphericity; hollow-particle rate; morphology and inclusions |
| Product physicochemical properties | Chemical composition; relative density; macro- and microstructure; mechanical properties; surface and internal quality; other special requirements — thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, etc. |
| Product dimensional inspection | Shape; dimensions and dimensional tolerances; roughness |
| Product performance testing | Pressure resistance; cleanliness; heat exchange efficiency; flow resistance; etc. (per customer requirements) |
Source: FASTFORM presentation slide, “Additive Manufacturing: Process Flow.”
2.2 Long-run printing stability
FastLayer, FASTFORM’s fully in-house intelligent metal 3D printing slicing software, is built on 3,000 machines deployed worldwide for high stability and reliability. It is deeply integrated at the two-way underlying level with the dedicated green laser AiForm-G1 platform, producing an energy-efficiency gain greater than the sum of its parts.
2.3 Lower cost per part
FASTFORM delivers precise control across the full cost stack — labour, equipment depreciation, raw material loss and energy consumption.
Cost reduction measures:
| # | Cost item | Calculation method |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Labour — operators | Plate workload ÷ parts formable per plate = labour hours required per part |
| 2 | Labour — design engineers | Negligible in mass production |
| 3 | Equipment depreciation | Allocated by forming hours per part |
| 4 | Raw material | Calculated at 1.1–1.5× part mass |
| 5 | Electricity | Forming hours per part × system power rating |
| 6 | Nitrogen or argon | Forming hours per part × system unit gas consumption |
| 7 | Maintenance | Annual maintenance cost → hourly maintenance cost → allocated by forming hours per part |
Cost levers: raw material and equipment costs decline year over year · full-process material circulation control increases the number of raw material reuse cycles · additional lasers, beam shaping and coordinated powder-bed printing raise forming efficiency · process optimization develops higher-efficiency forming parameters. Source: FASTFORM presentation slide, “Cost Reduction Measures.”
In small-to-medium-batch liquid cooling production, additive manufacturing’s cost per part is already lower than the conventional “skiving + brazing” process, while liquid cooling parts deliver 30%+ higher cooling efficiency — a double win of lower cost and stronger performance.
In addition, FASTFORM supplies customized flow-channel powder-cleaning processes and fixtures, holding residual powder in complex closed internal cavities to the lowest level in the industry.
The show also featured pure-copper cold plates, two-phase cold plate prototypes and chip-level microchannel heat sinks, covering single-rack high-power and energy-storage converter (PCS) cooling scenarios — drawing manufacturers to the booth for in-depth technical discussions.
03. Best Liquid-Cooling Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment Supplier Innovation Award
FASTFORM received the “Best Liquid-Cooling Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment Supplier Innovation Award” from MaiMai Expo. The award recognizes the company’s process innovation and mass-production capability in AI liquid cooling thermal components, built on its independently developed metal 3D printing equipment, and underscores its strength in liquid cooling intelligent manufacturing.
FASTFORM at a glance: 80 export countries and regions · founded in 2016 · 3,000 machines deployed · 10,000 m² of facilities.
On industry collaboration: “3D printing and CNC are not substitutes but complements — together we build better products for front-end customers.”
04. FAQ: Metal 3D Printing for Liquid Cooling Mass Production
What did FASTFORM present at the 6th Shenzhen International AIDC Liquid Cooling Summit? A full-stack “prototype to mass production” capability for high-power liquid cooling — covering bionic, TPMS and hybrid microchannel structures, a green laser forming system for pure copper, and a closed-loop quality system supporting thousand-piece-grade batch delivery.
What density and thermal conductivity does FASTFORM’s pure copper printing achieve? Printing density is stable at ≥ 99.8%, with pure copper thermal conductivity of ≥ 350 W/(m·K). Graphene copper raises thermal conductivity to 400 W/(m·K), and the green laser system also supports diamond composite copper.
How thin are the fins, and how much does that improve cooling? FASTFORM achieved 0.1 mm minimum fin thickness and 0.07 mm minimum fin spacing, versus an industry average of 0.2 mm thickness and 0.20–0.25 mm spacing. That delivers 30%+ more heat exchange area in the same volume and 30%+ higher cooling efficiency, while cutting cold plate volume and weight.
Is 3D printing cost-competitive with conventional cold plate manufacturing? Yes — for small-to-medium liquid cooling batches, the cost per part is already below conventional “skiving + brazing.” FASTFORM controls the full cost stack (labour, depreciation, material loss, energy, gas and maintenance) and delivers 30%+ better cooling efficiency at the same time.
What is the AiForm-G1 built volume and precision? The AiForm-G1 offers a 140 × 140 × 180 mm build volume, a 500 W green laser, 60 TFLOPS of computing power, 0.1 mm minimum thin wall, 0.07 mm minimum spacing, and a 20–80 μm layer thickness range.
Deep technology, steady progress. FASTFORM will continue to advance with hardcore manufacturing strength, and invites industry partners to work together toward a new high-compute liquid cooling ecosystem.
Explore FASTFORM’s metal 3D printing solutions for liquid cooling. Contact FASTFORM to discuss copper cold plate development, prototyping or volume production.