Developing the silver economy is a crucial means to address the challenges of population ageing and foster new economic drivers. Currently, population ageing has led to problems such as labor supply shortages and insufficient consumer demand. High-quality technological innovation can not only offset the pressure of labor shortages but also resolve consumption imbalances through innovative elderly care services, providing key support for the silver economy to break through the predicament of population ageing. This paper takes A-share listed enterprises providing elderly care services from 2010 to 2023 as the research sample, and uses Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Elderly Care Service Industry issued by the State Council in 2013 as an exogenous policy shock to explore the impact and mechanism of the silver economy on enterprises’ high-quality technological innovation. The findings reveal that the silver economy significantly promotes enterprises’ high-quality technological innovation, and the conclusion remains valid after robustness tests. Mechanism tests indicate that the silver economy injects momentum into enterprises’ high-quality technological innovation through alleviating corporate financing constraints, aggregating professional talents, and unleashing diversified market demand. Heterogeneity tests show that the promoting effect of the silver economy on high-quality technological innovation is more pronounced in regions with better digital infrastructure and low information asymmetry. Based on these findings, policy implications are proposed, including expanding financing channels for enterprises providing elderly care services, improving talent attraction policies in the silver economy sector, optimizing the supply of elderly care services, and promoting the sharing of public information on elderly care services, thereby providing practical references for breaking the dilemma of population ageing and promoting high-quality economic development.