Research on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence Development on Green Economic Development——Empirical Evidence from the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Innovation Development Pilot Zones

Against the backdrop of global climate change and the green development transition, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has brought new opportunities for the green and low-carbon transformation of the economy and society. Taking the construction of the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Innovation Development Pilot Zones launched in 2019 as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper systematically evaluates the impact effects and mechanisms of AI development on urban green economic development using a difference-in-differences (DID) model, based on panel data of 35 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2024. The findings are as follows: First, the AI pilot policy significantly improves the level of urban green economic development, with a policy effect of 0.0523, significant at the 1% level; this conclusion remains valid after a series of tests including endogeneity treatment, robustness checks, placebo tests, and PSM-DID. Second, the parallel trends test shows that before the policy implementation, the green economic development trends of the treatment and control groups remained parallel; after the policy implementation, the policy effect emerged immediately and strengthened year by year, rising from 0.0321 to 0.0756, exhibiting notable persistence and cumulative effects. Third, the mechanism analysis shows that AI development promotes green economic development mainly through three channels: industrial structure upgrading, digital inclusive finance development, and human capital enhancement, with mediating effects of 0.0345, 0.0289, and 0.0123, respectively. Fourth, the heterogeneity analysis finds that the green economy effects of the AI policy exhibit significant heterogeneity across regions, city tiers, and administrative levels, with stronger policy effects in the eastern region, first-tier cities, and higher administrative-level cities, showing a distinct gradient pattern; the difference between resource-based and non-resource-based cities is not significant. The conclusions of this paper provide empirical evidence and policy references for deepening the integrated development of AI and the green economy and improving the AI pilot policy.