Taiwan entrepreneur brings smart elderly care to mainland China as silver economy grows

Time Light Care, a smart elderly care enterprise based in Tianjin, has developed a proprietary smart elderly care management platform that draws on Taiwan's long-term care experience. The company is capitalizing on the mainland's growing silver economy, which is projected to exceed 30 trillion yuan by 2035. The nursing homes are designed as "community-embedded, small-to-medium scale, high-quality care" facilities, allowing seniors to remain in familiar surroundings while staying close to family.

On the technology front, Time Light Care has introduced millimeter-wave radar monitors for completely bedridden residents. These devices track breathing, pulse, and heartbeat in real time, with automatic alerts sent to caregivers' phones in case of any abnormality. The company has also introduced accessible vehicles equipped with detachable automatic wheelchairs that go directly to the bedside, helping "suspended seniors"—those who struggle to go downstairs due to the lack of elevators—to go out with dignity.

These innovations come as China's elderly population aged 60 and above reached 320 million by the end of 2025, a figure projected to exceed 400 million by 2035. In February 2026, an executive meeting of the State Council proposed to promote the expansion and quality improvement of inclusive elderly care service supply, improving a tiered, categorized, inclusive, accessible, urban-rural covering, and sustainable elderly care service system. The series of measures outlined at the meeting charted the direction and identified priorities for better meeting the diverse and multi-level needs of hundreds of millions of elderly people.

"The mainland's policy support and market scale have created immense opportunities for innovation in senior care," said Jing Ran, the company's representative, during an exclusive interview with China News Service. "Having succeeded in starting our business here, we now hope to encourage more young people from Taiwan to come, explore, and develop their careers on the mainland."

The company's efforts highlight the potential for cross-strait collaboration in the elderly care sector, leveraging Taiwan's experience and the mainland's scale and policy support. As the silver economy gains ground, such innovations are likely to become increasingly important in addressing the needs of China's aging population.