The Fourth Plenary Session of the Twentieth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly put forward the"AI+"action comprehensively, taking artificial intelligence as the core engine for the development of new quality productivity and the strategic support for the construction of digital China. The Fifteenth Five-Year Plan period is the critical window for China to seize the commanding heights of AI industrial application and empower all industries in an all-round way. Based on China's national conditions and the global competitive landscape, this paper scientifically grasps the inherent laws of AI development, clarifies the scientific connotation and practical path of"AI+"from the perspective of national top-level design, objectively examines the differences in organizational paths of AI development between China and the United States, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of China's AI development. It reshapes the multidimensional mode of AI embedding into industrial forms, which profoundly impacts the industrial organization and the demand structure of vocational skills; promotes the transformation of corporate governance from"using AI well"to"governing AI well", thereby resolving the structural risks brought by technology application; and reconstructs the paradigm of technological innovation in the AI era and enhances enterprises' core innovation capabilities. We should seize the historical opportunity of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, coordinate development and security, attach equal importance to innovation-driven and inclusive sharing, accelerate breakthroughs in core technology bottlenecks, build a sound AI governance system, and make AI technology the core engine for fostering new quality productivity and advancing Chinese-style modernization.
At present, accelerating the formation of new quality productivity and constructing a modern industrial system have become the core tasks for promoting the high-quality development of China's economy. In this context, how to promote the modernization of the industrial system through the coordination of innovation-driven development and high-level opening-up has become an important theoretical and practical issue. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2010 to 2024, this paper constructs a multiple regression model and a moderating effect model to empirically test the impact of new quality productivity on the construction of a modern industrial system, focusing on the moderating role, regional heterogeneity, and threshold characteristics of the regional opening-up level. The research results show that: first, new quality productivity have a significant positive promoting effect on the construction of a modern industrial system, and this conclusion is robust after robustness tests; second, the regional opening-up level plays a significant positive moderating role in the relationship between new quality productivity and the construction of a modern industrial system, with obvious regional heterogeneity; third, the regional opening-up level has a significant threshold effect, and the driving effect of new quality productivity presents a non-linear leap after exceeding the critical value.
Based on panel data from 216 prefecture-level and above cities across China from 2011 to 2024, this study explores the impact effects and mechanisms of the digital economy on urban total factor productivity (TFP) from the perspective of new quality productivity. The findings reveal that the digital economy fosters the formation of urban new-quality productivity, with a significant increase in TFP as a core indicator. Research has found that the digital economy significantly enhances urban TFP. Mechanism analysis indicates that the digital economy indirectly enhances urban TFP by stimulating entrepreneurs' innovative spirit and entrepreneurial spirit, with the former mechanism exerting a stronger effect, particularly through exploitative innovation. Nonlinear analysis shows that the empowering effect of the digital economy on urban TFP exhibits a single-threshold effect with entrepreneurs' innovative spirit as the threshold, characterized by diminishing marginal returns. Notably, when exploratory innovation surpasses the threshold, the empowering effect of the digital economy displays increasing marginal returns; conversely, exploitative innovation shows diminishing marginal returns, and the current level of exploitative innovation in most cities has already crossed the"critical threshold". Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that the digital economy's promoting effect on urban TFP is more pronounced in southern regions and non-resource-based cities. This study provides empirical evidence for orderly high-quality development of the digital economy, stimulating and cultivating entrepreneurial spirit, clarifying optimization pathways for"anti-overwork", improving urban TFP, and fostering the formation of urban new-quality productivity.
With the in-depth development of the global digital economy, accurately identifying the supporting role of digital infrastructure in the new quality productivity of enterprises is a key issue in promoting high-quality economic development. Based on the data of A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2024, this paper empirically examines the impact of digital infrastructure on the new quality productivity of enterprises by matching the 4G base station data extracted from the OpenCelliD database with the data of listed companies. The results show that digital infrastructure has a significant promoting effect on the new quality productivity of enterprises. Mechanism analysis indicates that digital infrastructure promotes the development of new quality productivity of enterprises by expanding breadth of knowledge, facilitating the formation of data assets and reducing transaction costs. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this promoting effect is relatively strong in enterprises with a higher level of digital transformation, belonging to non-polluting industry or high-tech industry, located in central cities, and cites that have established public data opening platforms. This paper provides theoretical basis and empirical support for the precise layout of digital infrastructure and the policy design of differentiated new quality productivity.
Strengthening local independent financial resources is the key work in the financial field during the "Tenth Five Year Plan", which plays an important role in the development of enabling new quality productivity in Digital China. Taking the local fiscal autonomy as the breakthrough point, this paper studies the mechanism of Digital China's construction enabling the development of new quality productivity, and empirically tests it using the mediation effect model based on the panel data of 285 prefecture level cities in China from 2009 to 2024. The results show that the construction of Digital China can endow new quality productivity by improving local fiscal autonomy. In areas where the highest education level of the chief executive is in economics and management, and where the level of marketization is high, the role of Digital China Construction in enabling new quality productivity through improving local fiscal autonomy is more obvious. Therefore, while continuing to promote the construction of Digital China, we should continue to form a supporting fiscal and taxation system, improve the "governance and financial management"level of the leading officials, and build a high-level socialist market economic system to promote the development of new quality productivity.
This paper constructs an evaluation index system of China's new quality productivity from three dimensions: new workers, new production tools and new labor objects. The entropy weight-TOPSIS method is used to measure the development level of 30 provinces from 2012 to 2024, and the coupling coordination model, Dagum Gini coefficient and obstacle degree model are used for systematic analysis. The results show that: (1)The overall level of China's new quality productivity is low, showing a pattern of"leading in the east, rising in the middle, and catching up with the northeast in the west"; (2)The evolution and differentiation of subsystems are obvious, the new workers are growing slowly, the new production tools are inverted U-shaped, and the new labor objects have increased since 2019, but the coupling coordination degree of the three is low; (3)Regional differences are mainly due to interval differences, and the gap between the east and the west is the largest.(4)The order of obstacle degree is new labor object (37.49%) > new workers (35.97%) > new production tools (26.54%). The main obstacles restricting the development of new quality productive forces include a weak foundation in high-tech industries, a lack of digital and intelligent capabilities, and a shortage of high-quality labor.
Developing marine new quality productivity is a core requirement for building a maritime power, with artificial intelligence serving as a transformative driving engine for this endeavor. Based on the theory of new quality productivity, this paper systematically analyzes the mechanism by which artificial intelligence empowers the formation of marine new quality productivity, and expounds the inherent logic of artificial intelligence driving the qualitative leap of marine productivity by reshaping production factors, building an intelligent core and transforming the paradigm of value creation. In response to the practical bottlenecks currently existing, namely the scarcity and isolation of high-quality marine data, the fragmentation and lag of professional marine large models, the closure and lack of intelligent open platforms, and the absence and delay of collaborative mechanisms, the paper constructs a four-in-one alleviation system featuring"data elements as the foundation, model ecology as the empowerment, platform carriers as the link and governance mechanisms as the guarantee". This research provides theoretical reference and practical guidance for breaking the bottlenecks in the integration of artificial intelligence and the marine economy and unlocking the potential of marine new quality productivity.
Amid the restructuring of global value chains and China's continued push for high-level institutional opening, firm internationalization has become increasingly important to the country's evolving development agenda. This study explores how the overlap between two policy initiatives—Free Trade Zones (FTZs) and Supply Chain Innovation and Application Pilots (SCIAPs)—is associated with firms' international expansion. Instead of examining the two programs in isolation, the analysis considers their staggered and intersecting implementation across regions as a quasi-natural setting. Using panel data on Chinese A-share listed firms from 2009 to 2024, a multi-period difference-in-differences specification is employed to identify the combined policy effect. Firms operating in areas where both initiatives are in place tend to reach higher levels of internationalization, and the estimated interaction term exceeds the individual contribution of either policy. Additional tests indicate that the effect is linked to lower institutional transaction costs, deeper supply chain integration, and improved financing conditions. The magnitude of the impact varies across firm types, with stronger responses observed among eastern firms, non-state-owned enterprises, and smaller firms. Taken together, the results suggest that institutional reform and supply chain digitalization can work in tandem to enhance firms' global competitiveness within China's dual circulation framework.
Digital knowledge has been identified as a primary catalyst for promoting future industrial development and empowering green technology innovation. It is imperative to investigate the means by which digital knowledge can be utilized to the fullest extent in order to foster green technology innovation. The present study employs the theory of knowledge recombination to exami-ne the theoretical connection between digital knowledge and green technology innovation. This analysis is based on the patent and commercial data of China's new-energy vehicle manufacturing enterprises from 2008 to 2023. The following findings were obtained: Firstly, digital knowledge has been demonstrated to have a positive impact on green technology innovation. Secondly, both explicit and tacit intergenerational knowledge bridges play an intermediary role between digital knowledge and green technology innovation. Thirdly, regional environmental regulation strengthens the positive relationship between digital knowledge and green technology innovation. However, the moderating effect of organizational environmental orientation is not significant. This paper establishes a theoretical foundation for leveraging digital knowledge to drive green technology innovation.
Improving carbon emission efficiency is an inherent part of advancing the "dual carbon" goals, and the digital innovation ecosystem is a key focus for enhancing carbon emission efficiency. Based on the "subject-resource-environment" analytical framework, this study selects panel data from 30 provincial regions in China from 2012 to 2024, and employs the super-efficiency SBM model, NCA, and dynamic QCA methods to explore the interactive effects and path selection of the digital innovation ecosystem in empowering the improvement of carbon emission efficiency from a configurational perspective. The research findings reveal that no single condition variable constitutes a necessary condition for achieving high carbon emission efficiency, all showing a "bottleneck effect", but government participation is an important condition for empowering the improvement of carbon emission efficiency. There are four types of configurations for high carbon emission efficiency, namely, "government-led empowerment type", "knowledge supply empowerment type", "government-talent dual-wheel empowerment type", and "government-led multi-element collaborative empowerment type". Each configuration shows a "V" shaped fluctuation in some time periods, but the diffe-rences in the spatial dimension are not significant. The research can provide theoretical and practical references for the combination of various elements in the digital innovation ecosystem to empower the improvement of carbon emission efficiency.
Utilizing panel data from 31 provinces in China spanning the period 2011 to 2023, this study constructs and measures the level of integration between the digital and real economies at the provincial level by employing the entropy method and the coupling coordination degree model. Through a combination of analytical methods—including the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition, kernel density estimation, and spatial correlation tests—the regional disparities and spatiotemporal evolution patterns of digital-real economic integration across China are systematically examined. The key findings are as follows: (1)China has achieved significant progress in the integrated development of its digital and real economies, with an overall upward trend observed over time. However, a clear gradient pattern exists among the four major regions: the eastern region leads in development, followed by the central region, while the northeastern and western regions lag successively. (2)Regional disparities constitute the primary driver of imbalanced development in digital-real economic integration nationwide, with the gap between the eastern and western regions being particularly pronounced. Intra-regional disparities also exhibit a distinct hierarchy—east > west > northeast > central—in terms of variation magnitude. (3)Significant spatiotemporal evolution characteristics are evident. Over time, the national and regional kernel density curves have shifted rightward, indicating a continuous improvement in integration levels and a weakening of polarization trends. The eastern and western regions display notable right-tail lags, whereas the central region is characterized by low-level convergence and left-tail lagging; the northeastern region shows relatively similar dynamics. Spatially, the integration level exhibits a significantly positive spatial agglomeration pattern, with high-value clusters concentrated in the eastern region and low-value clusters in the western region. The research results of this article can provide data support and policy references for promoting the construction of Digital China through the integration of the digital and real economies.
From the perspective of spatial effects and based on panel data across China's provincial regions, this paper constructs a Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model to empirically analyze the impact of government R&D subsidies on industrial enterprise innovation. The results indicate that that enterprise innovation inputs exhibit both temporal and spatial dependence. Temporally, innovation inputs from previous periods exert a significant driving effect on current inputs. Spatially, innovation inputs in neighboring regions initially stimulate local innovation. However, over time, a spatial crowding-out effect becomes evident. In contrast, enterprise innovation output demonstrates dependence only in the temporal dimension. The impact of government R&D subsidies varies across different types of enterprise innovation inputs and outputs. Specifically, these subsidies exert a certain crowding-out effect on R&D expenditure while significantly promoting R&D personnel investment. Furthermore, the subsidies show a positive spatial effect on R&D personnel investment, verifying the existence of interregional competition in government R&D subsidy policies. Government R&D subsidies exert a positive effect on firms' patent output, thereby enhancing their overall level of innovative output. However, they do not show a significant effect on innovation quality and fail to effectively stimulate firms' incentives to engage in high-level innovation.
When foreign capital enters the local market, competition between domestic and foreign enterprises will become more significant, which will motivate them to increase resource investment in product innovation to gain some product and market advantages. The catch-up between domestic and foreign enterprises in the input of industrial product innovation could increase the innovation investment in some associated industries. The effect can be called the "catch-up effect" (competition effect). After removing the "catch-up effect" of foreign investment affecting innovation investment of industrial product, domestic and foreign enterprises may learn from each other in some innovative activities with regard to product development, which will increase the innovation output of industrial products. Both domestic and foreign enterprises can play an exemplary role in the field of innovation, thereby increasing the innovation output with regard to industrial product, which can be called the "exemplary role". Using panel data from China's industrial sector from 2017 to 2024, this study examines the existence of the "catch-up effect" of foreign investment on industrial product innovation input and the "exemplary role" on industrial product innovation output through various estimation methods. Evidences in most estimations indicate that foreign investment significantly increases innovative input of industrial product in China; thus, the "catch-up effect" of foreign investment exists in operation. After controlling variable of the innovation input of industrial product, impact of foreign investment on innovation output of industrial product is not significant, and the results are robust based on different estimations. In addition, foreign investment cannot significantly expand the positive impact of industrial product innovation investment on their innovation output. Therefore, the "exemplary role" of foreign investment on innovation output of industrial product does not exist. In market-oriented reforms, policies with greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment could enhance innovation investment in industrial products through the "catch-up effect". This is useful for promoting the development of China's industry along a more innovative path under open conditions.
Cooperative innovation diffusion is an important path for innovation ecosystem evolution of wind power industry to accelerate its key technology breakthrough and develop green new high-quality productive forces. Based on the assumption of boun-ded rationality, cooperative innovation complex network evolutionary game model for wind power enterprises is constructed. Analyze the influence mechanism of changes in key parameters and network properties on the diffusion of cooperative innovation. Results are as follows: (1) Under the basic scenarios of BA type of complex network, cooperative innovation diffusion process shows such trends as "rapid growing→slowly rising→converging state", with approximately 76% of nodes ultimately adopting cooperative innovation strategies. (2) Stronger default penalty promote diffusion by curbing opportunistic behavior, whereas greater geographical distance, stronger technology spillover and higher technology complementarity requirements hinder diffusion. Moreover, reductions in geographical distance exhibit positive coupling with lower technology complementarity requirements and stronger institutional constraints, but negatively coupling with changes in technology spillovers. (3) Stronger partner-selection preference and a higher ave-rage network degree both promote the diffusion, whereas changes in network size have a relatively limited effect. Thus, strengthening spatial clustering for wind enterprises, and constructing regional coordination mechanisms should be the key directions to advance the diffusion of cooperative innovation and support the cultivation of new quality productive forces in China's wind power industry.
Enhancing the quality of green innovation in manufacturing is an important approach to promoting the transformation and upgrading of China's economy. Based on the perspective of "strategic triangle" configuration, this paper takes China A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2020 to 2024 as samples, and uses NCA and fsQCA methods to explore the multiple improvement paths of green innovation quality of manufacturing enterprises. The results show that: (1) A single factor is not a necessary condition for high green innovation quality and quantity, but low-level redundant resources play a universal role in high green innovation. (2) There are three driving paths for both the quality and quantity of high green innovation in manufacturing enterprises, and in the configuration of high green innovation quantity, industry competition and dynamic capability are in a substitutive relationship. There is one configuration path that can simultaneously produce high green innovation quantity and quality, namely, high industry competition and non-high redundant resources as core conditions, supplemented by high environmental regulation and high intellectual property protection as marginal conditions. (3) The quality improvement pathways of green innovation in manufacturing enterprises exhibit significant heterogeneity across different time periods, regions, and enterprise life cycles. This paper fin-dings help clarify the diversified improvement pathways of green innovation quality under the "strategic triangle" framework, providing decision-making references for formulating green innovation development policies in China's manufacturing industry.
Technology-based Small and Medium-sized Enterprises(SMEs) serve as crucial vehicles for implementing the innovation-driven development strategy. Evaluating the impact of the Innovation Points System on the innovation of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises and its underlying mechanisms is of great significance for stimulating corporate innovation vitality and optimizing the national innovation system. This paper provides empirical evidence from a multi-period difference-in-differences(DID) model, showing that the Innovation Scoring System significantly enhances the innovation performance of technology-oriented SMEs. Its core mechanisms lie in alleviating financing constraints and promoting the upgrading of human capital. Moreover, entrepreneurial spirit further mitigates the inhibitory effect of financing constraints on corporate innovation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the policy effect is more pronounced in regions with lower marketization, enterprises with low reliance on innovation subsidies, and those with a high degree of digital transformation. The study provides a theoretical basis for the differentiated policy design of the innovation points system and offers practical pathways for incentivizing innovation in technology-based SMEs.
