Taikang Insurance Group Chairman and CEO Chen Dongsheng responds to Every Daily: In the future, the elderly care sector will require large models to support chronic disease management and health management.

By China Business News reporter | Zhang Rui |
China Business News editor | Dong Xingsheng

From March 22 to 23, the 2026 annual meeting of the China Development Forum was held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

Chen Dongsheng, founder, chairman, and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Taikang Insurance Group, delivered remarks at the special discussion session on “Opportunities and Challenges of Demographic Change and Economic Growth.”

Chen Dongsheng said, “Today, we often talk about the unprecedented changes unseen in a century. In fact, one of the biggest changes is that humanity has entered a long-longevity era. Advances in medical science have continuously extended people’s lifespans. The extension of lifespan is a super trend—an is linear phenomenon.”

He said, therefore, there are many predictions: 30 or 50 years from now, people’s average lifespan may reach 100 years. The “14th Five-Year Plan” outline also sets a goal of raising the “average life expectancy to 80 years.” This linear pace is increasing—growing at roughly an average rate of 0.32 years per year, meaning it will increase by 3 years in a decade.

Chen Dongsheng outlined five major characteristics of the long-longevity era: first, low birth rates; second, low death rates; third, linear growth in population life expectancy; fourth, continuously extending average lifespans; and fifth, the population structure gradually converging from a “pyramid” shape toward a “column” shape, and even, in the future, displaying an “umbrella” shape.

Chen Dongsheng mentioned that after entering the long-longevity era, especially, demand is enormous for medical care, elderly care, rehabilitation, and nursing. Therefore, Taikang is also working to build an “integrated medical, care, recovery, and wellbeing” service system with seamless connectivity across the full lifecycle, to realize the accessibility and affordability of elderly care services. “In the past, medical care had medical alliances. So we are also exploring a long-longevity care alliance—combining institutional elderly care, community elderly care, and home-based elderly care into one, forming a new network and a new service system.”

During the annual meeting, Chen Dongsheng accepted on-site interviews with reporters from China Business News.

Recently, Chen Dongsheng said that the future investment directions are “dual carbon + technology” and “healthy aging + consumption.” Taikang’s insurance funds are a typical example of “patient capital.” In these two directions, where is the biggest investment opportunity right now? And where are the biggest risk points?

Regarding this question, Chen Dongsheng said that at present, China’s economy is exhibiting “K-shaped” characteristics. On the one hand, it is reflected in technology, manufacturing, and exports; on the other hand, it is reflected in people’s livelihoods, health, and longevity. Therefore, “healthy aging + consumption” is about layout from the perspective of consumption, while “dual carbon + technology” falls within the category of hard technology. In fact, all these areas are worth investing in. Especially as we enter the long-longevity era, healthy aging and elderly care are a major trend.

Regarding the goal in the “14th Five-Year Plan” outline to raise the “average life expectancy to 80 years,” Chen Dongsheng believes that precisely because there is such a goal, we need to “invest in people.” This year’s Government Work Report has clearly stated to place greater emphasis on investing in people. The section on the “14th Five-Year Plan” in the report also mentions “investing in people,” meaning it includes this direction.

When discussing AI + elderly care, Chen Dongsheng said, “You don’t need me to say more about AI. In the future, in the field of elderly care, chronic disease management and health management will both require support from large models. Therefore, when it comes to large models in vertical domains for the long-longevity era, we have a strong advantage—we have massive, high-quality big data.”

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