The 2026 Spring Festival Gala stage has become a "super runway" for Chinese robots. From martial arts combat to emotional companionship, from autonomous decision-making to cluster collaboration, four domestic humanoid robot companies, Yushu Technology, Songyan Power, Magic Atom, and Galaxy General, made a concentrated appearance and completed a shocking "technology roadshow" across the country. This technological feast is just in time. Data shows that the current population aged 60 and above in China has reached 320 million, and it is expected to exceed 400 million by 2035. The scale of the silver economy is expected to exceed 30 trillion yuan. Driven by policies, demand, and technology, the elderly care robot industry has experienced explosive growth. The top-level design of the policy is leading the trillion dollar blue ocean silver economy and is receiving intensive policy support. On February 24th, the first executive meeting of the State Council after the Spring Festival holiday focused on the development of the silver economy and elderly care services. The meeting pointed out that China's silver economy has great potential, and it is necessary to improve support measures, strengthen policy implementation, promote the development of elderly care and the elderly care industry, and provide strong support for coping with population aging; We need to further unleash the demand for silver hair consumption, enhance consumption capacity, and leverage policies such as consumer subsidies to create new scenarios and formats for silver hair consumption. Experts stated that the conference placed equal importance on the elderly care industry and coordinated its promotion, achieving an organic unity between ensuring basic livelihood and cultivating emerging industries, and releasing positive and clear policy signals. Previously, a series of policy measures had laid the foundation for the development of the industry. In November 2025, six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed in the "Implementation Plan for Enhancing the Adaptability of Consumer Goods Supply and Demand to Further Promote Consumption" to optimize the supply of aging friendly products; Strengthen the research and design of aging friendly products, with a focus on developing urgently needed products such as elderly care service robots, multifunctional nursing beds, and health monitoring equipment. At the end of 2025, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and eight other departments jointly issued the "Several Measures on Cultivating Elderly Care Service Operators to Promote the Development of Silver Hair Economy", introducing 14 specific measures. Promoting the development of elderly care and the elderly care industry is the key to addressing the aging population situation, and it is also an inevitable requirement for improving the quality and efficiency of elderly care services in China during the 15th Five Year Plan period. According to the Blue Book of Silver Hair Economy: China's Silver Hair Economy Development Report (2024), it is predicted that by 2035, the scale of China's silver hair economy will reach 30 trillion yuan, accounting for 10% of GDP. More importantly, technological innovation is placed in an important position for the development of the silver economy. The Ministry of Civil Affairs and 24 other departments jointly issued the "Several Measures to Further Promote the Consumption of Elderly Care Services and Improve the Quality of Life of the Elderly", which clearly deploys the construction of a new "smart+" elderly care scene. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology guides resources towards high-quality technology products suitable for the elderly through specific work such as promoting catalogs of elderly products. The intensive release of policy dividends injects strong confidence into the market. Industry insiders believe that the coordinated efforts of a series of policies are clearing obstacles and opening up channels for the smart elderly care industry represented by elderly care robots. The resonance of supply and demand in the elderly care robot industry is entering an explosive period. Driven by both policy dividends and market demand, the elderly care robot industry is facing new development opportunities. Public data shows that the population aged 60 and above in China has reached 320 million, and the number of disabled and dementia elderly continues to rise. The rigid demand for home care for daily life care and rehabilitation care is becoming increasingly prominent. In sharp contrast to the rapidly deepening aging trend, China's elderly care resources are relatively scarce. The fifth sampling survey on the living conditions of elderly people in urban and rural areas of China shows that there are about 35 million disabled elderly people in China. According to other data, the current shortage of elderly care workers in China has reached 5.5 million. This gap creates a rigid market space for the elderly care robot industry that can provide sustainable and standardized auxiliary services. Industry insiders say that technological innovation provides more possibilities for industrial development. The commercial application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data has significantly improved the functionality and reliability of elderly care robots. The increase in the localization rate of core components has also promoted overall cost reduction and accelerated the marketization process of products. In recent years, many listed companies have taken the lead in expanding their presence in the field of elderly care robots. As a representative of the industry, Robot (300024. SZ) has a product line covering various types of robots such as exoskeleton rehabilitation, life care, and companionship, and has been piloted in multiple elderly care institutions. Illinois, a subsidiary of Ousheng Electric (301187. SZ), has also achieved multi scenario coverage of its nursing robot products, and its fifth generation wearable intelligent two toilet nursing robot products have entered the mass production stage. Meditech (603990. SH) has established a joint venture with Ubiquitous to launch a health and wellness companion robot that can provide targeted care, daily reminders, lifestyle services, health monitoring, and emergency safety services for the elderly. In July 2025, Haier Group announced its robot product "HIVA Haiwa", which can be remotely controlled by engineers to complete household chores such as floor cleaning and cooking, and is linked with smart home appliances. It will take about 3 to 5 years for robots to learn how to use tools, such as washing dishes, laundry, and folding clothes. Zhou Yunjie, Chairman and CEO of Haier Group, believes that nanny robots will become a more popular household infrastructure than cars. Experts say that the release of rigid demand and technological iteration upgrades are driving the accelerated expansion of the elderly care robot market. The implementation of cutting-edge technologies such as embodied intelligence, brain computer interfaces, and millimeter wave monitoring will greatly enhance the capabilities of robots in fall monitoring, precision nursing, rehabilitation assistance, and effectively fill the gap in human care. Ecological integration accelerates the integration of smart elderly care into real consumption upgrading, and also gives birth to a new business model of "enjoying the elderly" for the silver haired generation. Currently, the needs of the elderly are transitioning from basic "elderly care" to high-quality "elderly enjoyment". The consumption of services such as community elderly care and home-based elderly care is growing rapidly, and new consumption hotspots such as living and elderly care, elderly entertainment, and smart wearables are constantly emerging. "Artificial intelligence+elderly care" is also giving birth to more new consumption scenarios. With the continuous maturity of product technology, elderly care robots are accelerating their integration from independent hardware devices into a broader intelligent elderly care ecosystem. The deep integration of "product+service+scenario" is reconstructing a new pattern of the silver economy. The integration of "technology+services" has enabled enterprises to no longer be satisfied with just selling hardware devices, but to focus on providing integrated smart healthcare solutions. For example, Haier Smart Health has built a diversified product matrix covering daily life, care, and rehabilitation, and achieved data interconnection and service collaboration through the Smart Health Cloud Platform, comprehensively solving the pain points of elderly users' lives. Meanwhile, cross-border cooperation has built a new industrial ecosystem. Faced with complex elderly care needs, industrial chain collaboration has become an inevitable choice. In September 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Civil Affairs announced the list of 32 pilot projects for paired research and scenario application of intelligent elderly care service robots, in which multiple listed companies and leading enterprises participated to jointly build a "robot+big model+scenario data" integrated ecosystem. Industry insiders believe that the future industry leaders are likely to be platform based enterprises that can integrate technology, data, services, and channels to build an open and win-win ecosystem. However, Zhu Songchun, the director of Beijing General Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, reminded that at present, artificial intelligence and robots are more prominent in specific fields, and many still require remote control by humans. Robots entering the home scene still face multiple challenges that need to be overcome. In the future, we need to focus on three major directions: adapting to aging, exploring cost reduction, and deepening scene cultivation, to promote the transformation of products from "usable" to "user-friendly". Experts say that with the implementation of policies, mature technology, and innovative models, elderly care robots are expected to fully integrate into smart elderly care scenarios, becoming the core carrier for solving the problem of aging and activating the trillion dollar potential of the silver economy. (New Society)