Far East: Building a Multi-Billion Dollar Age-Tech Ecosystem in South Korea
Theodore Nguyen
South Korea’s population is currently aging much faster than any other OECD country. Specifically, the old-age dependency ratio, reflecting how many older people depend on each working-age person, is estimated to increase from 20% in 2018 to around 70% in 2050. With low fertility rates and increased longevity, South Korea’s demographic shift has reached a prominently rapid speed. By 2025, South Korea is projected to become a “super-aged society”, in which more than 20% of its total population will be 65 year-old and over.
To address the challenges associated with an aging population, South Korea is currently heavily investing in elder-care technology. During the 10th session of the Population Emergency Response Meeting, the Low Birth Rate and Aging Society Committee (LBRCS) announced plans to increase investments into the Age-Tech market through a 300 billion Korean won (approximately 206 million U.S. dollars) project. The project primarily focuses on AI-powered care robots, wearable and digital medical devices, age-related diseases’ treatments, anti-aging medicine, and smart home care. At the same time, the government started a new "Bio Investment Fund" of 50 billion Korea won (approximately $35 million U.S. dollars) to research and focus on early-stage ventures in biotech fields, including geriatric diseases. Additionally, over 2,000 new smart senior care centers will be set up to complement the 2,300 currently in operation, where the elderly can get access to Age-Tech devices.
According to the Journal of the Korean Medical Association, between 2019 and 2023, a total of 18,044 seniors aged 65 and older committed suicide——over 3,000 deaths each year. In short, nearly 10 older South Koreans died by suicide daily. To combat elderly depression, Hyodol was invented, which is an AI-powered plushie robot designed for elderly, especially those who live alone. It is characterized by a soft, adorable, and doll-like appearance. Hyodol has various functions such as singing, talking, engaging in conversations, and responding to touch. The robot also features daily reminders for taking medicine, meditation, eating meals, and doing light exercise. The robot, nicknamed the “AI Grandchild”, is known for providing emotional support and connection and greeting with phrases like “Grandma/Grandpa, I’ve been waiting for you all day!” Some versions of Hyodol can notify caregivers or social workers in emergency situations.
More companies like GeronX.ai are also developing AI-driven digital care platforms. The name GeronX.ai is derived from a combination of gerontology (the study of aging) with eXplainable AI (XAI). The core technology of GeronX.ai is an AI-based real-time monitoring and risk prediction system, integrating proprietary wearable devices and IoT sensors. This band/watch-shape product can be used for eight hours continuously on a single charge, with an built-in SOS button and high-precision biosensor.
Municipal initiatives, such as Moon Heon-il’s, the mayor of Buk-gu’s, Gwangju, AI- and IoT-powered senior health management programs, equip older adults with smart devices and applications that monitor health metrics and signs and guide personalized health decisions. The system is accessed via smartphones' apps, and for those who don't possess a phone, a screen-type AI speaker with Bluetooth functionality is provided so that anyone can participate.
On August 21, 2025, during the 52nd Emergency Economic Countermeasures Meeting, Mayor Park Heong-joon emphasized the need for the city to build an age-tech virtuous-cycle economic system. To achieve this, the city is pursuing diversification, expanding into fields such as welfare equipment, medical devices, healthcare products, food technology, and housing improvement projects. Building on these efforts, over the next five years, the city plans to invest approximately 128.3 billion Korean Won to advance four major strategies aimed at strengthening its age-tech ecosystem. These strategies focus on expanding infrastructure and citizen services while implementing targeted initiatives that use AI, IoT, and other advanced technologies. Together, this comprehensive approach not only fosters local innovation but also highlights South Korea’s role as a global leader in showing how advanced economies can adapt to an aging population both socially and economically.
Voices of Concern
While South Korea’s rapid expansion of age-tech highlights AI’s strong potential to support an aging society, it also exposes new and unresolved risks, particularly in the healthcare industry.
Against the backdrop of rapid AI advancement, concerns about safety and bias have intensified alongside its growing popularity. As life expectancy rises, older adults are becoming the dominant user group of AI-driven medical devices. In the Global Report on Ageism by World Health Organization (WHO), the phenomenon where practice of ageism taking place in medical AI system was identified, demonstrating that a number of AI devices to show higher tendency than other healthcare systems to associate general health outcomes and diagnoses with chronological age of the users.
Specifically speaking, some scholars pointed out that, when AI models containing biases are used, harm might be disproportionately attributed to vulnerable groups who are not properly represented in the AI datasets, in which intensifying the healthcare inequality. That being said, when existing discrimination in healthcare is encoded into AI systems, these technologies replicate bias, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that leads to avoidable yet unjust disparities in health outcomes across population groups.
Sangoh Yun and Woojeong Hwang from Dankook University conducted a study on age-based discrimination against older adults in South Korea. The study calls for institutional reforms to revise practices that encode age bias into algorithms. It also emphasizes the need for stronger ethical safeguards to protect fairness across all ages.
Ethical Dilemmas
In South Korea and other parts of the world, questions in regard with Age-Tech industry has been increasingly correlating with ethical concerns. On the one hand, AI elder-care system highly relies on continuous data collection, which some people hold the perspective that these practices normalize intrusive surveillance in the name of safety. Furthermore, in October, 2025, Korean Society of Counseling Psychology, Education, and Welfare cautions that older adults may struggle to give informed consent for AI monitoring, particularly those with limited cognitive or digital literacy. Continuous data collection in elder-care technologies therefore poses serious privacy risks.
Conclusion
Tackling with the social challenges of an aging population: isolation, increased depression and suicide rates, declining cognitive and physical health, and the increasing demand for sustainable care-giving, South Korea is leveraging the ongoing demographic shifts as an economic opportunity. While innovative technologies and supportive programs aim to help the elderly population live healthier, happier, and more emotionally connected lives, they also raise privacy, consent, and age-bias concerns, underscoring the importance of ethical protection alongside AI innovation.