Formnext Asia Shenzhen 2025: When Boring Beats Brilliant

“While Western companies fight for novelty, China fights for acceptance.”

This observation, scribbled in my iPhone note app during Formnext Asia Shenzhen, held from August 26 to 28, captures what struck me most about the show. Across 20,000 square meters, exhibitors displayed shoe molds, mobile phone hinges, heat exchangers, customized footwear, toys — not prototypes but production items with price tags. China’s 3D printing industry has chosen boring over brilliant, and it’s building an industry.

The Acceptance Game

The numbers tell the story. Jinqi Toys operates 5,500 3D printers across 10,000 square meters, targeting 12,000 units by year-end. They manufacture 30,000 items daily. Huasu runs nearly 1,000 machines in what they call a “3D printing super factory.” BLT, one of China’s leading metal AM manufacturers, operates 600 systems providing printing services. These aren’t startup dreams—they’re operational realities generating actual revenue.

At the concurrent 2nd 3D Printing Farm Conference, Yue Jingdong from Creality outlined how China has systematized even the business models. He identified three farm archetypes based on “information asymmetry”: Manufacturers pursue scale with low margins and quick payback, profiting from volume. Full-Chain Operators protect proprietary sales channels to maintain higher margins. Tech Gurus command premium prices in ultra-specialized niches. Each model works because it solves real business problems, not theoretical ones.

Farsoon’s booth exemplified this maturity. Their partnership with Victory Group involves 40 metal AM systems producing shoe mold inserts 24/7, featuring specialized “popcorn” patterns with thousands of micro-ventilation holes that are impossible to achieve through traditional manufacturing. The molds bypass complex labor-intensive steps while addressing sustainability concerns. Their new automatic overlap calibration technology reduces setup time from 180 to 10 minutes—a 95% improvement that matters more to customers than any breakthrough in printing physics.

Products Over Promises

PollyPolymer’s booth revealed China’s true AM priorities: applications. Rows of 3D printed shoes dominated the space, with most visitor interactions centered on the footwear itself, rather than the machine behind it. Founded in 2017 in Suzhou, the company has developed proprietary HALS (Hindered Asynchronous Light Synthesis) technology that prints 20-100 times faster than conventional methods, producing a shoe midsole in just 20 minutes. But technology wasn’t what drew the crowds. Customers were trying on shoes, examining quality, and making purchases. I tried a pair myself and wore them throughout the show day—completely comfortable, with perforated structures providing excellent ventilation that prevented sweating, and lattice-structure soles delivering genuine cushioning. These weren’t technology demonstrators; they were products competing on comfort and price, not novelty. PollyPolymer’s approach—integrating their own printers, 5,000+ material portfolio, and SuperDesigner software—enables in-store printing, micro-factories, and direct-to-consumer models. Their materials achieve EVA-like performance while remaining 100% recyclable. Yet at the booth, conversations focused on fit, comfort, and style—not printing speeds or material science. When AM products can drop their technology tag completely and still win customers, the market has truly arrived.

HP’s China operation demonstrates what acceptance looks like at scale. Their top five customers each operate roughly 100 HP systems, with individual production runs reaching 100,000+ units in electronics and automotive applications. At their booth, they displayed various items, including hydraulic components and automotive parts, using Metal Jet technology—actual production items, not capability demonstrations.

“To succeed in China, you need three things,” explained Hua Zhao, HP’s head of Greater China Market. “First, mindset—compete but embrace local players to build awareness. Second, speed—adapt quickly to local customer pace. Third, creativity—customize solutions and alliances.”

HP holds approximately 25% market share among the top Chinese contract manufacturers in industrial polymer printing. Their Metal Jet adoption leverages existing MIM (Metal Injection Molding) infrastructure through partnerships with Chinese furnace makers and material suppliers. As one Chinese furnace maker told them: “I’m doing 100 furnaces anyway for MIM. Adapting for HP Metal Jet is incremental, not starting from scratch.” This pragmatic approach to building on existing capabilities accelerates the development of the ecosystem.

Engineering Dominance Over Scientific Breakthroughs

Where Western AM pursues new printing physics and revolutionary processes, China focuses on process engineering: yield improvement, cost reduction, cycle time optimization, and scaling efficiency.

UniontTech brought this philosophy to life with specific equipment. Their RSPro800 SLA printer for fixtures achieves 0.1mm dimensional accuracy with surface roughness controlled to Ra<0.26. Their Fuees430 metal printer for shoe molds features quad-laser configurations with 6 m/s scanning speeds and automated powder management. These aren’t breakthroughs—they’re optimizations that generate profit.

HBD’s trajectory illustrates this approach. Since their first commercial installation in 2019, they’ve deployed over 250 systems out of China, with systematic expansion through their Munich subsidiary for European operations and Hong Kong entity for Southeast Asian markets. Vice President Rodgers Ma noted that hundreds of Chinese companies already use AM for shoe molds, with “much more room” for growth as traditional methods get replaced.

Jinqi Toys targets 30-40 yuan for 3D-printed lamps that European brands sell at 380-1170 yuan. They maintain “zero debts to suppliers, zero debts to customers, zero inventory operations” while controlling single-product quantity error to within 1% even when producing 1,000 SKUs simultaneously. Through meticulous scrap management, they achieve “almost zero material waste.”

Huasu’s transformation from OEM work illuminates this approach. After discovering their high-speed platform could produce “telescopic parts” that traditional equipment couldn’t, they pivoted entirely to capacity operation. Now they ship thousands of “gear balls” daily for the decompression toy market, with orders reaching hundreds of thousands of units.

Supply Chain Independence

China’s strategy extends beyond manufacturing to complete supply chain control. The localization push represents systematic independence building, not just cost reduction.

Feibo Laser exemplifies this shift. After patient development since 2015, they launched dedicated 3D printing lasers in late 2023 and captured over 1,000 installations within two years. Deputy General Manager Niu Zhiyu predicts complete import replacement by 2026: “Domestic lasers will replace imported lasers in all SLM applications across all industries.”

Their dot-ring laser technology increases efficiency 3-6 times through thicker layer printing. Yet Niu rejects price competition: “Sustainable development cannot be achieved solely through low prices. Companies must rely on technology, quality, and value to succeed.”

HBD demonstrates vertical integration at the system level. They’ve developed complete in-house capabilities, including machine control software, slicing engine, laser path optimization, and thermal management.

“We’re reducing dependency on German suppliers for scanners and software,” Ma explained. “This gives us better efficiency, quality, and batch consistency.”

CNPC POWDER completed a 1,500-ton-per-year production line for LPBF-grade aluminum powder, achieving a 60% yield in the critical 20-63 μm range. Each production line exceeds 300 tons annually with high sphericity (≥92%), low oxygen content (≤350 ppm), and bulk density (≥1.4 g/cm³).

AI Meets Physical Production

Tripo AI demonstrates China’s integration of digital and physical manufacturing. With 3 million developers and 40,000 corporate clients generating 40 million models, they’ve reduced design barriers to minutes. Users upload photos or type descriptions; Tripo generates print-ready 3D models—no CAD skills required.

The platform has already integrated with major players, including Creality, Anycubic, and gaming giants like Tencent Games, which embed Tripo’s API into their platforms. Customers generate assets that are uploaded to their own profiles, creating a B2B2C model that enables mass customization at an unprecedented scale.

Founder Song Yachen frames this revolution: “When design costs approach zero and cycles shorten to minutes, manufacturing pressure returns to the production line—and 3D printing’s flexible capabilities are the answer.”

Tripo Studio’s features—automatic component segmentation, skeletal binding, smart stylization—compress weeks of design into ten minutes. Their planned UGC platform will connect designers directly to print farms, creating an ecosystem where “everyone becomes a designer, every idea rapidly manufactured.”

The Farm Revolution

The print farm phenomenon deserves special attention. It’s not just about printer quantity but systematic production organization.

Creality’s farm management software centralizes control with scheduling and monitoring capabilities across the United States, Europe, and Latin America, with expansion into Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Their AI-powered cloud service captures models and generates files automatically.

Creality explained how farms segment by strategy: the first type leverages internet models for volume, the second balances exclusivity with scale, while the third focuses on a “diverse experience” in gaming and customization with “very high margins.”

Huasu emphasized the “production line mindset”: temporary workers collaborate with nearby shops and families on a piece-rate basis, each producing dozens to hundreds of pieces daily. For B-side orders (10-1,000 pieces), they use WeChat Work and spreadsheets to manage color, quantity, and post-processing status. “If you want to scale, you must have a system,” they stressed.

The geographic spread confirms market maturation. Elegoo’s regional managers reported 2-3x year-over-year growth in Southeast Asia.

“Print farms are booming in the UAE, Malaysia, and Vietnam,” noted Aaron, their Southeast Asia manager. “Customers often have low expectations at purchase but are positively surprised by print quality.”

What This Means

China’s AM strategy challenges Western assumptions about innovation. While companies in Europe and America chase scientific breakthroughs, including area-wide metal sintering, liquid-metal printing, and gel-suspension systems, Chinese manufacturers optimize what works. They’re not inventing new physics, but they’re engineering better businesses.

This approach might lack the excitement of breakthrough announcements, but it builds sustainable markets. When 3D printing becomes invisible, it becomes just another manufacturing method rather than a technological marvel, and adoption accelerates. China understands this.

The implications extend beyond national borders. As Chinese AM companies expand globally with proven production applications rather than laboratory demonstrations, they’re reshaping competitive dynamics. Their question isn’t “what’s possible?” but “what sells?”

Walking through Formnext Asia’s aisles, I kept returning to that initial observation. The West optimizes for novelty; China optimizes for adoption. In the long run, adoption builds industries. Boring beats brilliant when boring ships products, meets deadlines, and generates profits.

The revolution won’t be 3D printed in exotic materials using breakthrough physics. It’ll be manufactured overnight in standard polymers and metals, delivered on time, at prices that make sense. China’s betting the future of additive manufacturing looks less like science fiction and more like regular business.

That might not generate headlines, but it’s building an industry.

Images courtesy of Sangmin “Simon” Lee unless otherwise noted.