Artificial intelligence industrial agglomeration and innovation in key green technologies: Evidence from China

Innovation in key green technologies (KGTI) serves as a critical pillar for promoting green development. Based on panel data of Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2022, the degree of corporate KGTI breakthroughs is measured using an improved TF-IDF method, and a city-level artificial intelligence industrial agglomeration (AIIA) index is constructed from business registration records to systematically examine the impact of AIIA on corporate KGTI and its underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that AIIA significantly promotes KGTI, a finding that remains robust across a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analyses reveal that AIIA operates through two primary pathways: expanding firms' innovation boundaries and strengthening collaborative innovation. Heterogeneity analyses suggest that the enabling effect of AIIA is jointly shaped by institutional environment, organizational resources, and industrial competitive dynamics. Specifically, the facilitative effect is more pronounced in contexts where local governments exhibit greater environmental attention, where firms possess higher technological generality, where executives have environmental backgrounds, and where industries feature faster product iteration and stronger competitive pressure. Further analyses indicate that government environmental subsidies, green institutional investors, and managerial environmental governance cognition positively reinforce the effect of AIIA on KGTI. By uncovering the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which AIIA drives KGTI from the perspective of industrial spatial structure, this study provides new empirical evidence on how the development of the AI industry can empower green technology innovation.