From the dimmed lights of the Shanghai Adult Expo booths rises a clear and seductive message: the future of eroticism will be hi-tech, hybrid, and free of taboos.
This year’s Shanghai Adult Expo (held from April 18 to 20, 2025) was a futuristic stage of pleasure, showing how the Asian sex tech industry is aiming to play a leading role. Between stands displaying multicolored vibrators and hyper-realistic dolls, in Asia sex shouts innovation: connected gadgets, affectionate robots, and AI-powered sex toys that seem straight out of erotic sci-fi films. China already produces about 70% of the world’s sex toys, and there is a notable push toward hybridizing physical pleasure with the digital dimension. From the dimmed lights of the booths comes a clear and seductive message: the future of eroticism will be hi-tech, hybrid, and free of taboos.
If in Europe this trend has been growing for some time, in China and Asia it is still in its early stages, but the potential is enormous, and these technological innovations align with a slow sociocultural shift. The traditionally modest mindset of many Asian societies, such as China, is loosening, and young Chinese people are less shy.
Sex is increasingly perceived as personal well-being, no longer a taboo. Evidence of this could be seen in some gadgets presented in Shanghai: for example, vibrators capable of predicting ovulation by analyzing body temperature, or detecting orgasms by recording the type of stimulation that triggers them.
Major international brands are now focusing on smart devices able not only to keep intimacy alive at a distance, but also to bring to life fantasies worthy of sci-fi erotica, such as sex with robots. Artificial intelligence is the true engine of this revolution: from smart vibrators that sync in real time with pornographic videos, replicating their movements, to gadgets connected to erotic chatbots able to create virtual girlfriends with whom to chat, play, and even be guided into pleasure.
Sistalk, a Beijing-based startup originally founded for phone apps, presented a social app where users can chat and meet virtually while remotely controlling sex toys. Meanwhile, companies like Oninder are merging the idea of Tinder with digital erotic products, where swiping becomes a way to search for consensual erotic fantasies.
In this interplay, sex tech becomes a bridge between modernity and desire, a signal that Asia is setting the pace for the global pleasure industry.
On the economic front, the entire Asia-Pacific region is seen as a strategic market of the future. According to China Daily, the Chinese market alone had already surpassed USD 17.9 billion in 2023.
In Shenzhen, for example, Starpery Technology (a leader in sex doll production) is training an innovative language model to give its dolls conversational ability and realistic movement. The project, as explained by CEO Evan Lee, is to create a new generation of sex dolls able to interact with users both vocally and physically. Sensors and AI algorithms will be enough to respond to touch and voice, aiming more at emotional connection than mere conversation.
The Asia-Pacific region was already worth about USD 9.3 billion in 2024 (with projections of nearly 18.8 billion by 2033), and market analysts note how the easing of cultural taboos and the expansion of e-commerce are driving demand. Globally, among emerging trends are virtual and augmented reality applied to pleasure, as well as teledildonics: in Japan, for example, immersive VR erotic experiences are already being tested. According to SCMP, Chinese scientists are training AI chatbots such as DeepSeek for sex robot applications, aiming to make them more conversational and “human.” The global “SexTech” sector was valued at about USD 37 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to over 140 billion by 2032, with Asia set to play a leading role in this expansion.
The result is a hybrid landscape where technological innovation and cultural contexts intertwine. On one side, traditions and taboos persist; on the other, young people are exploring new boundaries of intimacy and expressive freedom. In this interplay, sex tech becomes a bridge between modernity and desire, a signal that Asia is setting the pace for the global pleasure industry.
China scholar and photographer. After graduating in Chinese language from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Camilla lived in China from 2016 to 2020. In 2017, she began a master’s degree in Art History at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, taking an interest in archaeology and graduating in 2021 with a thesis on the Buddhist iconography of the Mogao caves in Dunhuang. Combining her passion for art and photography with the study of contemporary Chinese society, Camilla collaborates with several magazines and edits the Chinoiserie column for China Files.