Amid rows of agricultural booths and the pungent smell of durians, companies from around the world mixed technology with produce at the Eighth China International Import Expo in Shanghai, which concluded on Monday.

Exhibits included an AI device to reveal the insides of durians, efforts to standardize coconut water market, and new varieties of hybrid rice.

China’s growing trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — which reached $57.51 billion in 2024 — has meant that products such as durian, bananas, and mangoes are now finding their way into millions of Chinese households. 

Capitalizing on this trend, the Chinese brand Dr. Surprise unveiled the “Durian Detective,” an AI device that uses CT scans and algorithms to assess a durian’s internal quality, including segment count, flesh yield, and weight, at 98% accuracy, all without breaking the fruit’s shell.

“Buying durians used to be like opening a blind box — sometimes a surprise, sometimes revenge,” joked Cai Fuzai, the brand’s e-commerce manager. “Now, with this device, you can see the quality right away.”

The Durian Detective was trained on a database the company built through extensive manual testing and real durian parameters. “We opened hundreds of fruits, recorded details like segment count and yield, and continuously trained the model to reach today’s level of accuracy,” Cai told Sixth Tone.

A few booths away, Chinese coconut water brand Delgarden showcased its first “source-based” coconut water factory, which began trial operations this month. Brand manager Zhu Zhizhan said the company invested over 50 million yuan ($7 million) in Thailand for the project.

“We want consumers to know exactly which tree and region each bottle comes from, not just a random blend of ingredients,” Zhu said.

Delgarden also introduced automated equipment and hygiene protocols to a traditionally small-scale and dispersed local industry. “Coconuts aren’t as easy to juice as apples or oranges; they need to be cut open,” Zhu said. “We established standardized tools, aseptic production lines, and strict worker sanitation measures.”

Beyond Southeast Asian fruits, companies also turned their focus to other crops. 

Swiss agricultural tech enterprise Syngenta highlighted three hybrid rice varieties it developed in China — Diamond 152, Jackpot 102, and SYN18.

“We integrate local climate, soil, and farmers’ cultivation habits to conduct targeted breeding,” Vickie Wang, Seed Market Manager at Syngenta, told Sixth Tone. 

SYN18, for instance, was officially registered in Vietnam in 2024 and has already gained popularity among farmers, while Jackpot 102, introduced in the Philippines in 2019, now holds about 10% of the Filipino market.

Syngenta is currently running technical tests and demonstration projects in more than 30 Belt and Road countries, with over 100 Chinese hybrid rice varieties exported to date.

Bai Lianyang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in a forum at CIIE that the Global South is currently facing the dual challenges of the climate crisis and food shortages, calling China’s hybrid rice a “golden key” to this predicament.

Syngenta also unveiled a robot dog for use in farming that its UK team developed. The company hopes to deploy the robot for field inspections, including crop yield monitoring, pest and disease identification, and weed control in both open fields and greenhouses.

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: “Durian Detective,” an AI device that uses CT scans and algorithms to assess the inside quality of a durian, at the Eighth China International Import Expo (CIIE), Nov. 7, 2025. VCG)