Ping An wants to turn China’s demographic crisis into an opportunity to showcase a ‘silver future’

However the ground house and furnishings aren’t what’s most attention-grabbing concerning the flat. There are sensors within the ceiling, meant to mechanically detect when an occupant has fallen. A show within the mirror reveals very important indicators recorded in a single day. A contact display screen gives a direct connection to a concierge, portrayed by an AI-generated avatar of a younger lady.

The house is a part of Ping An’s bid for the “silver financial system,” centered on serving to retirees in search of well being care, training, and leisure. The insurer is concentrating on China’s aged, whose numbers will quickly rival all the U.S. inhabitants.

“Individuals who don’t have ample monetary sources can depend on the federal government. Individuals who need a bit extra can select Ping An,” says Michael Guo, Ping An’s co-CEO and the person liable for its well being care and eldercare technique.

One among China’s largest personal corporations, Ping An is making its bid for well being care at an opportune time. China is rapidly aging as birth rates plummet. Twenty years in the past, China’s median age was 32; now, it’s simply previous 40. Most discussions of China’s demographic disaster concentrate on the draw back: a steep decline in China’s working-age population, the supply of the nation’s manufacturing and financial increase.

However China’s demographic transition is barely a disaster for some. The silver financial system—centered on a fast-growing, newly rich, newly curious, and newly impartial cohort over age 50—might be value billions to corporations like Ping An which can be attempting to mix expertise and good design to serve an getting older society.

“If you happen to didn’t adapt to the altering nature of your inhabitants, you’re going to be left behind,” says Stuart Gietel-Basten, a demography professional on the Hong Kong College of Science and Expertise. “It’s a pure shift within the inhabitants construction, and when you saved doing all the pieces the identical, you’d be an fool.”

As the remainder of the world ages, Ping An’s—and China’s—expertise might present how a silver future may work.

With 242 million retail clients, Ping An, based in 1988, dwarfs the U.S.’s largest insurance coverage firm, UnitedHealth Group, and its 152 million shoppers. Most of Ping An’s enterprise is insurance coverage—property, auto, well being, and so forth—but it surely additionally owns one of many nation’s largest banks, Ping An Financial institution, and a U.S.-listed fintech platform, OneConnect.

Ping An Insurance coverage, the group’s publicly listed arm, reported $158.6 billion in income final yr, a virtually 8.8% rise from the yr earlier than. That places it at No. 47 on this yr’s Global 500, leaping six spots from final yr. Ping An can be the second-highest-ranked personal Chinese language firm on the listing, behind e-commerce big JD.com however forward of different family names like Alibaba and Tencent.

Guo joined Ping An in 2019 from Boston Consulting Group, the place he was a managing director and associate. He served as Ping An’s chief human sources officer and headed up its property and casualty insurance coverage enterprise earlier than rising to co-CEO in 2023, now working alongside co-CEO Xie Yonglin.

China has been a difficult place to do enterprise since Guo joined six years in the past. After COVID got here a short crackdown on China’s tech sector, and the collapse of the country’s property bubble dragged down each inventory markets and family consumption. Ping An’s income declined by 9% in 2022, then by nearly 20% the next yr.

Nonetheless, Guo is optimistic that Ping An, and China, have turned a nook. “We’ve executed a major quantity of labor de-risking a few of our portfolios associated to the Chinese language macroeconomy,” he mentioned, pointing to Chinese language shares and property, including that enhancing optimism over the Chinese language financial system due to sturdy inventory market efficiency additionally helped.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s global trade war, which locations 55% tariffs on China, threatens to complicate issues once more. Ping An generates nearly all of its income in China, whether or not on the mainland or within the Chinese language metropolis of Hong Kong. But the corporate’s asset portfolio is international, which means it’s uncovered to international macroeconomic shifts. (For instance: Ping An is one among HSBC’s largest shareholders.)

Which means the commerce conflict is an issue for Ping An. “After we make investments abroad, now we have to consider which nations and industries are going to carry out within the subsequent 5 to 10 years. After we make investments domestically, we take into consideration which industries or areas will likely be impacted by the tariffs,” Guo explains.

And if China’s financial system does get dragged down by Trump’s tariffs, that may rebound on Ping An. “We depend on Chinese language folks to purchase our insurance coverage insurance policies, to financial institution with us, to purchase bank cards, and so forth,” he provides. “In the event that they don’t have secure jobs, they make much less cash or they’re extra pessimistic concerning the future; that may impression how they work together with monetary establishments.”

Guo is now in control of Ping An’s “well being care and aged care” technique and its expertise endeavors, placing him on the forefront of what he calls the corporate’s “subsequent part of progress.”

Ping An’s well being care enterprise is small in contrast with the broader group, producing simply $680 million in income final yr. Senior care companies delivered simply $39 million in gross sales—and that’s after a 400% enhance. However Ping An plans to leverage its broader buyer base, funneling its thousands and thousands of medical insurance clients to its well being care and eldercare companies, supercharged by its decades-long funding in AI. It’s a profitable alternative, if it really works.

China’s inhabitants has shrunk by about 4 million since 2021. The charges of latest births and marriages have additionally plummeted. China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs estimates the nation’s aged inhabitants will develop by about 10 million a yr over the subsequent decade.

Beijing is scrambling: By 2021, it had eliminated all household planning restrictions, together with the notorious “one youngster coverage.” Native Chinese language governments now provide money incentives as excessive as $14,000 to encourage folks to have kids.

China’s social security internet is underdeveloped for its sizable financial system. Simply over a billion individuals are enrolled in a state-managed primary pension, but payouts will be as little as beneath $25 a month.
Company pensions are uncommon, and personal pension accounts are simply getting off the bottom. In 2019, the Chinese language Academy of Social Sciences warned that China’s state pension fund risked operating out of cash by 2035.

Beijing is twiddling with coverage on the older finish of the age spectrum. Final yr, it hiked the retirement age: 63 for males; 58 and 55 for ladies in white-collar and blue-collar jobs, respectively.

Companies are already adapting to a China with fewer employees and extra DINKs (double revenue, no children). Some markets, like pet care, are booming, whereas others, like dairy, are an unsure future.

A part of that shift is the silver financial system: items and companies concentrating on China’s rising aged inhabitants, coupled with extra alternatives to proceed working into previous age.

“The Chinese language authorities is attempting its easiest to offer a layer ov social welfare and senior care amenities,” Guo says, including that it doesn’t have the monetary energy to be sure that protection is deep sufficient. As a substitute, the federal government is targeted on making certain that everybody has a minimum of some protection.

However that’s not adequate for China’s middle-class households, who’ve constructed up household wealth within the a long time for the reason that nation opened up its financial system. “There’s a mismatch between what’s obtainable offered by the federal government and what’s demanded by middle-class customers and households. And that is the place we see alternatives for Ping An to bridge the hole,” Guo explains

It’s a profitable hole: Chinese language officers predict the silver financial system might develop to 30 trillion yuan ($4.2 trillion) by 2035.

Gietel-Basten doesn’t assume that China’s declining inhabitants essentially spells doom. “If you happen to have a look at the 50-year-olds of at the moment, they’re utterly totally different from the 50-yearolds of 30 years in the past,” he explains. “That is what we name ‘demographic metabolism’ of populations: getting older and smaller, but additionally more healthy, extra educated, extra expert.”

Ping An isn’t the one insurer betting on a wave of aged clients. AIA, No. 417 on the World 500, can be bullish on the silver financial system, constructing new merchandise like wealth administration, wellness applications, and residential look after it.

Li Dou, who heads Ping An Well being, explains that there’s a “90-7-3” distribution relating to getting older in China: 90% age at dwelling, 7% get community-based care, and three% go to devoted senior care amenities.

Qilai Shen/Panos Footage for Fortune

He factors to some distinct buyer segments—those that reside alone in China’s second or third-tier cities, after their kids moved to extra economically vibrant cities; “early seniors” in early retirement now free to journey and hunt down new experiences; and the 80-plus crowd who want extra fixed care.

Due to its insurance coverage enterprise, Ping An already has entry to an unlimited community of hospitals, pharmacies, and residential care teams. However the insurance coverage big now owns a number of dozen well being establishments all through the nation as effectively, together with six tertiary hospitals. It’s additionally constructing out a number of “alliances” past simply medical companies to help the silver financial system.

For instance, Ping An now collaborates with universities to supply academic lectures to its clients who, Li says, lacked alternatives for a high-quality training of their youth. It’s additionally establishing bundle excursions with cultural itineraries, health-conscious meals, and inns designed particularly for older vacationers.

This concentrate on leisure fits the subsequent era who, due to having smaller households, have way more wealth to spend on themselves. “The following silver era don’t have grandchildren, don’t have kids— they’ll put extra sources into themselves and search for alternatives to study issues, volunteer, and even get again to work,” says Dicky Chow, head of well being care at assume tank Our Hong Kong Basis.

Nonetheless, well being is an costly enterprise. Ping An Well being made a slim $12 million revenue final yr, its first since being established in 2014. The corporate misplaced $46 million in 2023.

“It requires numerous capital to amass well being care and senior care suppliers. It’s good to construct senior care communities, and it’s very time-consuming to finish such tasks and construct up a model within the well being and senior care enterprise,” explains Iris Tan, an analyst at Morningstar.

However Ping An’s bid for the silver financial system is underpinned by a decade-long guess on AI, which it’s poured billions of {dollars} into, even earlier than OpenAI’s ChatGPT compelled each firm to undertake the brand new expertise.

Its AI applied sciences embrace a fraud detection instrument and software program that may generate a synthetic voice from only a few real-world samples. Others are extra non secular, like a Buddhist chatbot accessible to Ping An workers, “which may discuss to you identical to a monk,” says Xiao Jing, Ping An’s chief scientist. “It’s extremely reliable.”

Anthony Kwan for Fortune

And Ping An is leaning into AI for the aged. Xiao means that AI is best suited to middle-aged and older customers, who may admire the selection of AI-generated voices and avatars, whether or not it’s a voice and look that reminds them of their grandchild or an avatar resembling their professor.

And the subsequent era of aged folks gained’t be strangers to digital expertise, Chow says: “Within the subsequent 10 to twenty years, there’s going to be a drastic shift [in digital literacy].”

Beijing isn’t the one authorities grappling with a demographic disaster. Japan’s inhabitants has been shrinking since 2010, forcing the federal government to think about robotics and automation as a approach to take care of its getting older inhabitants. South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility fee, main native governments to think about drastic measures like government-endorsed matchmaking companies.

The U.S., too, can have its personal getting older issues. The U.S.’s complete fertility fee is at 1.6, a report low,
and hasn’t been above 2.1, the so-called alternative fee, for the reason that early ’90s. The Inhabitants Reference Bureau tasks that 82 million Individuals will likely be over the age of 65 by 2050, practically 1 / 4 of the inhabitants.

China’s demographic decline is usually offered as a long-term threat, however may it as a substitute show a possibility? If China— which is dealing with a a lot bigger aged inhabitants with far fewer sources— can develop a vibrant silver financial system, might different nations do the identical?

The world’s second-largest financial system is barreling forward on automation, making use of industrial robots to its manufacturing sector to make up for scarcer, costlier—and shortly rarer—employees. AI, too, may assist present look after seniors with out dedicating plenty of individuals to run well being concierges and administer exams.

In that case, China’s demographic disaster could show to be extra alternative than disaster.

This text seems within the August/September 2025: Asia difficulty of Fortune with the headline “Ping An’s subsequent frontier: China’s ‘Silver Economic system.’”