China to use robots to take care of its aging population

Robots are touted as one solution to this problem but their costs still remain high creating an obstacle to their widespread implementation. 

Obstacles to adoption

Today, there are over 100 Chinese robotics startups specializing in rehabilitation, companionship, and nursing robots but most have yet to achieve mass production. This is partially due to the fact that local authorities are not providing enough funding to roll out robots in nursing homes at scale.

And nursing homes are simply not profitable enough to afford many robots on their own. Sunshine Nursing Home is a private care facility in the eastern Anhui province whose co-founder, surnamed Dong, struggles with this issue

“If we invest money in smart devices, our prices will go up and fewer people will come in,” told Sixth ToneDong.

Not all is lost however. Analysts have great hopes for the long-term prospects of China’s smart health care industry. A research firm in Guangdong province released a report predicting the market would “explode” over the next decade and by 2027 would be more than three times larger than it was in 2021.

Gu Jie, CEO of Shanghai Fourier Intelligence, a robotics company that specializes in rehabilitation devices, claims the report is likely correct in its estimates.

“No matter where the elderly live, they all hope their limbs can be flexible and their mental state improved,” told Sixth ToneJie. 

“And after purchasing the devices, multiple people can use them, which greatly improves efficiency. This is exactly what AI is about.”