MIT mechanical‑engineering professor and VulcanForms co‑founder John Hart shows how the convergence of high‑power lasers, metal 3‑D printing, and AI‑driven “digital threads” is reinventing manufacturing from the factory floor up. Tracing a line from Gutenberg’s press to modern jet‑engine parts, Hart explains why today’s fragmented, globe‑spanning supply chains can be “re‑architected” into flexible, information‑rich production networks that fabricate hip implants, smartwatch housings, and aerospace components on the same industrial printer. MIT News MIT Department of Mechanical EngineeringInside VulcanForms’ 150,000‑sq‑ft Devens, MA “foundry,” racks of synchronized lasers hum like data centers while machine‑vision systems build a real‑time digital twin of every layer. Hart details the software stack that simulates heat flows, catches microscopic flaws on the fly, and feeds back data to improve alloys discovered through large‑scale numerical searches. The result: parts that emerge stronger, lighter, and faster than legacy processes can deliver. MIT News Additive ManufacturingLooking ahead, Hart argues that multimodal AI models will fuse design, simulation, and production into a single conversational interface—collapsing complexity, unlocking custom materials on demand, and shifting value toward “cloud manufacturing” platforms. The talk closes with three implications: radically new product architectures, highly reconfigurable factories, and a rebalanced global value chain where production itself becomes a high‑value, data‑driven asset. John Hart is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity and Center for Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies (APT) at MIT. John’s research focuses on additive manufacturing, nanostructured materials, and the integration of computation and automation in process discovery.John has published more than 125 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is co-inventor on over 50 patents, many of which have been licensed commercially. He has also co-founded three advanced manufacturing startup companies, including Desktop Metal. John has been recognized by prestigious awards from NSF, ONR, AFOSR, DARPA, ASME, and SME, by two R&D 100 awards, by several best paper awards, and most recently by the MIT Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx