TRUMPF Celebrates 100th Anniversary With ‘Mega Laser’

DITZINGEN, Germany—The TRUMPF Group celebrated its 100th anniversary here last week by firing one of the world’s most powerful show lasers. The laser light shone for the first time on the evening of Aug. 3. The green laser beam was visible up to 50 miles away.

TRUMPF manufactures machinery for bending, punching, cutting and welding metal tubes and sheets. The company also makes lasers for cutting, welding, marking and additive manufacturing.

The green beam for the company’s anniversary was produced by an energy-efficient laser with 3 kilowatts of power. Show lasers are not part of TRUMPF’s core business. Rather, the company’s lasers are used for applications such as welding EV batteries or processing semiconductors.

In 1923, Christian Trumpf and two partners acquired the mechanical workshops previously occupied by Julius Geiger GmbH in Stuttgart, Germany. This laid the foundations for the company, which from 1937 operated under the name TRUMPF. From the mid-1930s, TRUMPF specialized in the production of manual machinery for simple sheet-metal processing tasks. In the 1950s, the company’s focus shifted to stationary machine tools. As early as 1985, TRUMPF launched its first laser.