The most expensive part of putting a 3D-printed metal part on a weapon system is often not the printing. It is the paperwork that proves the material behaves. On October 13, 2026, America Makes and its managing organization, NCDMM, named two teams to take on that problem under the $12.4 million MIAMI project call. Northrop Grumman leads one team and Fastech, LLC leads the other. Both are trying to show that metal additive manufacturing (AM) materials can be swapped in for legacy alloys in defense components without starting qualification from zero every time.

MIAMI stands for the Maturation Initiative for Additive Metals Interchangeability. The name explains the goal. The question is not whether a printed alloy is good enough for one part on one platform. It is whether a printed material can be treated as a validated substitute for a traditional alloy across many parts and programs.

What the Call Actually Asks For

When NCDMM first announced the call, it described the work in concrete terms. Teams pick candidate parts and define the performance requirements those parts must meet. Then they generate validated data showing the AM material meets or exceeds the legacy alloy it would replace. The stated payoff is broad, cross-platform use of that data, less redundant testing and faster qualification.

The money comes through the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment through its IBAS program, according to NCDMM. 3D Printing Industry reports that the funding runs through the OSW WIRE office. MIAMI was one of two project calls NCDMM announced together, worth $25.6 million combined. The original announcement included a quote from John Martin, Additive Manufacturing Research Director at America Makes.

One detail stands out when you compare the call with the result. The original solicitation said "three awards are anticipated." The October announcement names two. The available reports do not say why the third slot went unfilled or whether the full $12.4 million is split between the two teams. The winner announcement on the America Makes site could not be retrieved for this story, so that question is still open.

The Two Teams

Northrop Grumman leads the first team, with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Contextualize as partners. The prime has been public about the cost problem MIAMI targets. At the AMAA 2025 event, Andrew Thompson of Northrop Grumman said that producing material data and test coupons often takes 18 months and costs millions of dollars, according to 3D Printing Industry. Northrop has built an internal framework for that work, called SPAMRS. MIAMI's stated aim is shared, validated data of the same kind, available across programs.

Fastech leads a larger group:

  • Pacific Engineering
  • Auburn University and its National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence
  • Texas A&M University
  • Prime Tech Data Management
  • AML3D
  • Westmoreland Mechanical Testing & Research

The mix makes sense for a data-generation program. It brings together universities with AM research centers, a dedicated mechanical testing lab, a data management firm and AML3D, which also sits among the suppliers in a related America Makes program described below. VoxelMatters confirms the same two leads and partner lists. It describes the objective as producing shared, validated data that reduces redundant testing and shortens qualification across the defense industrial base.

Part of a Larger Qualification Push

MIAMI does not stand alone. In August 2026, America Makes awarded two other qualification-focused projects, which 3D Printing Industry describes in its coverage.

Delta Qual 2.0 ($9 million) addresses laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) measurement and calibration, plus "bracketed" qualification. Auburn leads the bracketed team, with Northrop Grumman and Texas A&M as members. The overlap with MIAMI's rosters is clear.

JAQS-SQ ($10.5 million) brings together 25 suppliers, including Fastech and AML3D. It aims to set common training and audit requirements for LPBF and directed energy deposition (DED).

Add MIAMI to those two and 3D Printing Industry counts nearly $32 million awarded in 2026 for defense AM qualification. The three projects go after the same bottleneck from different angles. Delta Qual 2.0 works on the machine and process side. JAQS-SQ works on the supplier and audit side. MIAMI works on the material side. The same handful of organizations show up on more than one team, so the results are likely to feed into each other.

Why Interchangeability Is the Hard Part

Anyone who has printed metal, or read the spec sheet of a printed metal, knows the problem. A printed alloy with a familiar name is not the same material as its wrought or cast counterpart. Microstructure, porosity, anisotropy and post-processing all change how it performs. Defense programs have often dealt with this one part at a time, so every new application repeats much of the same test campaign. That is the 18-month, multimillion-dollar cycle Thompson described.

MIAMI is betting that a properly built dataset can break that cycle. If a team shows that a printed material meets or beats a legacy alloy against defined requirements, and that data is accepted across platforms, the next program does not have to pay for the same coupons again. Whether that happens depends on how the data is structured, who has access to it, and whether qualification authorities accept it outside the program that produced it. The public descriptions of MIAMI set those as goals, not guarantees.

What It Means for Makers

None of this will change what you put on your own build plate next week. Still, defense qualification work can matter beyond defense. Validated material data, common audit requirements and calibration methods could spread from defense primes to their suppliers, and possibly on to the service bureaus and equipment makers that serve everyone else.

For small shops and advanced hobbyists working in metal, the trend is worth noting. The industry's main constraint is moving away from "can we print it?" and toward "can we prove it?" Programs like MIAMI, Delta Qual 2.0 and JAQS-SQ are paying to make that proof cheaper and reusable. If the data really is shared across the defense industrial base, as VoxelMatters describes, the barrier to entry for qualified metal AM work could drop for the smaller suppliers who make up much of that base.

The bottom line is that $12.4 million is not much next to defense budgets, and two teams are fewer than the three the call planned for. But the target is the right one. Paying once for material data that many programs can reuse beats paying for it again on every part.

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