The trillion-level silver economy is booming: Elderly care robots are opening up a blue ocean market, creating vast new opportunities in the rapidly expanding senior care industry. As the aging population grows, innovative robotic solutions are becoming essential to meet increasing demand for quality elderly services, while also driving technological advancements and economic development in this sector.

“Elderly care robots are not just an industry for making money, but also a cause to alleviate people’s livelihood issues.”

Talking about this emerging track, Professor Tian Xinchao from Guangdong University of Technology, a director of the China Population Society, and a member of the Political Consultative Conference of the Jiusan Society Provincial Committee, pointed directly to the core. Recently, during the 2026 Guangdong Provincial Two Sessions, Tian Xinchao provided development suggestions for the elderly care robot industry and expressed Guangdong’s development potential and positive direction.

By the end of 2024, the registered elderly population aged 60 and above in Guangdong has reached 17.8926 million, accounting for 17.46%. The increasing issues of high age, disability, and empty nesters have overwhelmed traditional elderly care models, while the shortage of caregiving personnel and insufficient workforce are forcing the inevitable trend of AI substitution.

On January 13, eight departments including the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the “Several Measures to Cultivate Elderly Care Service Operators and Promote the Silver Economy,” explicitly supporting technological empowerment of elderly care services and encouraging the development of elderly care robots industry. On the 29th, the Ministry of Civil Affairs held the first-quarter 2026 regular press conference to interpret the “Guiding Opinions on Further Promoting Civil Affairs Technological Innovation,” which proposed the broad application of frontier technologies such as humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial intelligence, to develop high-performance intelligent elderly care robots and strengthen technological support in aging and elderly care services.

Urgent Need for Elderly Care and Ecosystem Improvement

In Tian Xinchao’s view, the most unique value of elderly care robots lies in their dual attributes of “industry and cause.” As an emerging track integrating advanced manufacturing and the silver economy, it can cultivate a trillion-yuan market, which is the industry’s potential.

According to the Fudan University Aging Research Institute’s forecast, under the background of moderate growth in per capita consumption levels, by 2035, the scale of the silver economy will reach 19.1 trillion yuan, accounting for 27.8% of total consumption and 9.6% of GDP; by 2050, it will reach 49.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 35.1% of total consumption and 12.5% of GDP.

Regarding the “cause attribute,” Tian Xinchao stated: “For disabled and semi-disabled elderly people who are paralyzed at home and have no time for children to care for them, relying solely on manual care cannot meet the demand. The assistance of elderly care robots in caregiving is real livelihood support, which is its core value as a welfare cause.”

This dual value makes elderly care robots a new track with both warmth for people’s livelihood and economic vitality amid increasing aging.

“Guangdong is a major province in electronic information and intelligent manufacturing, with a complete industrial chain, abundant university research resources, and policy support for frontier technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and exoskeleton robots. These are Guangdong’s unique advantages,” Tian Xinchao especially praised Guangdong’s industrial foundation. He pointed out that current issues such as disconnection between technology and demand, and weak ecology, are problems in development that can be solved through targeted policies.

Regarding these issues, he proposed: first, strengthen provincial strategic coordination, formulate special action plans, establish cross-departmental coordination mechanisms, plan for a characteristic elderly care robot industry belt, and form policy synergy; second, focus on technological breakthroughs, encourage industry-university-research-medical collaborative innovation, concentrate on key technologies such as high-precision sensors and intelligent bionic joints, and develop in-depth solutions for urgent needs like disability care and chronic disease management; third, improve element guarantees and market environment, encourage researchers to conduct demand surveys and collaborative R&D in elderly care institutions; accelerate standardization and market promotion, led by provincial market supervision departments, jointly develop key local standards, carry out “Yuepin” certification for elderly care robots, and prioritize certified products in government procurement and elderly care institution catalogs. “Technological breakthroughs make products useful, mass production makes products affordable, policy support shapes the industry, and the three work together. Guangdong’s elderly care robot industry will definitely lead the country.”

Tian Xinchao’s expectations are echoed in the practice of Zhili Intelligent Technology (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. The company centers R&D in Guangzhou, links with a manufacturing base in Liuyang, Hunan, builds an independent supply chain, and joins the Greater Bay Area Brain-Computer Interface Industry Alliance, creating a “production-university-research-medical” collaborative innovation system—co-establishing the “Brain-Computer Intelligent Technology Innovation Center” with South China University of Technology, and establishing clinical cooperation with dozens of top-tier hospitals such as Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Jinan University Affiliated First Hospital, serving over ten thousand patients, forming a complete closed loop from technology R&D, product manufacturing to clinical application.

According to data from Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, the global brain-computer interface market size reached $1.98 billion in 2023, expected to surpass $6 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 25.22%.

The outlook is promising. However, market research shows that the industry still faces issues such as “rapid technological breakthroughs but slow commercialization.”

The key to technological implementation is proximity to real elderly care scenarios. Tian Xinchao emphasized: “Whether a product can be accepted depends on whether it can truly achieve humanoid functions and solve the actual problems of the elderly.” This means companies must step out of laboratories, allowing researchers to go deep into elderly care institutions and community homes to accurately capture urgent needs.

Patients using brain-computer interface rehabilitation bicycles, supplied by the company

From “Passive Transport” to “Thought-Control”

“Traditional rehabilitation treatments mainly involve healthcare workers or family members passively transporting patients, which not only consumes a lot of manpower but also lacks stimulation of the patient’s active willingness,” said a researcher from Zhili Intelligent. “Pure mechanical assistance can only exercise muscles but is difficult to activate brain neuroplasticity. Traditional exoskeleton devices focus on basic assistive functions, but still face technical challenges in complex neurological rehabilitation scenarios such as freezing gait in Parkinson’s patients.”

Founder Xie Longhan of Zhili Intelligent explained that for some stroke patients, due to impaired nerve and limb signal conduction, long-term lack of effective training may lead to functional degradation. By collecting multi-source signals such as EEG, EMG, and plantar pressure through brain-computer interface technology, and using AI algorithms to “decode” patients’ movement intentions in real-time, it helps activate brain neuroplasticity and provides targeted training support for limb rehabilitation, aiding patients in regaining mobility.

“Currently, after continuous algorithm iterations, in clinical adaptation scenarios, our brain-computer interface’s decoding accuracy of patients’ movement intentions can reach over 90%,” Xie Longhan told Southern Finance and Economics. “This indicator is at the industry’s leading level. The technology has been applied in dozens of top-tier hospitals such as Jinan University Affiliated First Hospital (Overseas Chinese Hospital) and Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, serving over ten thousand patients. Early users’ balance ability improved by 40%, fall risk decreased by over 50%, and many long-term bedridden patients successfully achieved independent walking through training.”

A relevant person from South China Brain Control believes that Guangdong has obvious advantages in the brain-computer interface industry chain. The complete electronic information industry foundation and mature smart hardware manufacturing capabilities provide strong support for the R&D and mass production of high-performance brain-computer interface devices. Rich research resources and university innovation capabilities promote close integration of basic research and application development. Relying on these advantages, Guangdong enterprises can more efficiently realize technological implementation and product application.

Patients conducting lower limb training and functional reconstruction with brain-computer interface devices, supplied by the company

Faced with the technological anxiety of “not knowing how to use, not daring to use” among the elderly, and the difficulty of popularizing high-quality products, innovative models are key.

According to relevant officials, current brain-computer interface rehabilitation projects have been included in the medical insurance fee list in many regions, “about 966 yuan for a 20-minute session (subject to local medical insurance policies and hospital charging standards),” reducing the cost for patients; companies coordinate with distributors to allow hospitals and elderly care communities to provide services through leasing, further expanding coverage. By 2025, Zhili Intelligent will sign a national smart elderly care pilot project with Guangzhou Elderly Home, successfully selected for the “Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Civil Affairs’ pilot project for pairing and scene application of intelligent elderly care service robots.”

According to the “2024–2029 Elderly Care Robot Industry Status and Future Development Trend Analysis Report” by Zhongyan Puhua Industry Research Institute, the domestic elderly care robot market size exceeded 30 billion yuan in 2024, expected to reach 50 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of over 30%.

Despite the broad prospects, the industry still faces challenges. Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research, mentioned that “standards and norms, data privacy protection, shortage of multidisciplinary talents, and high costs with long investment return cycles” are common issues that need breakthroughs in the global brain-computer interface and elderly care robot industries.

“Next, we will develop more cost-effective home rehabilitation robots, achieving lightweight, miniaturized, and intelligent designs. As more elderly people are aging at home, the demand for home rehabilitation is growing. We hope our products can serve more patients. In the future, we will continue to promote lightweight, intelligent, and scaled products, aiming to create high-cost-performance home rehabilitation robots so that intelligent rehabilitation devices can enter thousands of households,” Xie Longhan said.

(Source: 21st Century Business Herald)