Beijing builds innovative service platform to make elderly care smarter

China News Service, Beijing, October 9 (Reporter Xu Jing) Beijing Weilao Laboratory was inaugurated on the 9th. This is an innovative service platform in the elderly care field led by the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau. It aims to integrate the city's high-quality resources related to the elderly and open up the entire chain of "basic research - technological research - achievement transformation - industrial application" in the field of elderly care.

The 2026 Beijing Elder Care Service Industry Development Sijiqing Forum was held on the same day. Xia Zehan, Director of the UNESCO East Asia Regional Office, said that the elderly face challenges such as disease and disability, and a good ecosystem should be created to enable them to maintain their mobility and lifelong learning, social and other skills. Beijing is a member of the UNESCO Global Learning Cities Network. Smart elderly care and AI applications are becoming more and more popular in Beijing, and many related facilities have been built. With the help of the AI ​​service platform, the elderly can also share skills, historical and cultural knowledge, promoting intergenerational exchanges and lifelong learning.

Yang Zhiwei, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, said that Beijing has gathered co-construction units from many fields for the old laboratory, including universities, scientific research institutes, as well as industry associations, medical institutions, financial institutions and technology companies. This year, the Beijing Laboratory for the Elderly will carry out joint research on key topics around "senior care + artificial intelligence", elderly-related data governance, dementia care, and silver consumption, implement demonstration projects such as human-machine symbiosis smart elderly care, inclusive smart nursing homes, and elderly-related data governance, and simultaneously build an industrial service platform.

In terms of smart meal assistance scenarios at home in communities, Beijing has implemented a number of digital demonstration pilots. Based on the "Haidian Canteen" brand system, the Dongsheng Town Elderly Care Service Center in Haidian District integrates intelligent ordering, elderly settlement, nutritional recipe management, dining data statistical analysis functions, and is equipped with intelligent cooking equipment. It takes into account offline dining, online ordering and home delivery, and simultaneously implements preferential subsidies for the elderly; the Xinjiekou Street Elderly Care Service Station in Xicheng District relies on the construction of the "Parent Canteen" to extend digital meal assistance services to alley courtyards to solve the problem of dining difficulties for the elderly and disabled elderly.