From June 11 to 13, the 2025 Shanghai International Elderly Care, Assistive Devices and Rehabilitation Medical Expo, held in Shanghai, saw significant interest in humanoid robots.
Shanghai is one of the earliest cities in China to face an aging population and has the highest degree of aging. By the end of 2024, the population of registered elderly people aged 60 and above in Shanghai reached 5.7762 million, accounting for 37.6% of the total registered population. This year’s expo also attracted many elderly visitors.
An 84-year-old elder from Shanghai hopes that humanoid robots will not only have human appearances but also master various dialects. She mentioned that there are elderly people from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Wuxi, and other places in her nursing home, and some of them speak in dialects which the robots cannot understand, a problem she hopes will be resolved.
“It’s impossible for the elderly to start learning new languages at 80; it’s the robots that have to adapt to us. If it doesn’t ‘listen’ to me, I might not need it,” she said during an interview.
