IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i5p1890-d1597723.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Urban Digital Intelligence in Fostering Sustainable Collaborative Innovation: An Analysis of Spillover Effects

Author

Listed:
  • Chu You

    (Institute of Western China Economic Research, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China)

  • Qingfeng Luo

    (School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

  • Wei Liu

    (School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

Abstract

Urban digital intelligence transformation (DIT) has emerged as a key driver of sustainable development in the era of rapid technological advancement. This study utilized the spatial Durbin model with difference-in-differences (SDM-DID) to explore the intrinsic relationship between DIT and intercity collaborative innovation. The findings indicate that DIT significantly enhances collaborative innovation locally and in other cities. DIT accelerates the movement of R&D talent, capital, and knowledge while driving collaborative innovation across local and neighboring cities by enhancing market potential. Collaborations between enterprises and universities exhibit stronger direct and indirect positive effects, collectively driving the development of sustainable intercity collaborative innovation. Additionally, the study finds that the impact of DIT on substantial innovation is greater than that of non-substantial innovation. Furthermore, the digital transformation of large and central cities has a stronger promotional effect on both local and neighbor collaborative innovation, fostering the sustainable development of intercity innovation cooperation. These results deepen our understanding of the relationship between DIT and intercity collaborative innovation and provide policy insights for enhancing intercity collaboration and promoting regional sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Chu You & Qingfeng Luo & Wei Liu, 2025. "The Role of Urban Digital Intelligence in Fostering Sustainable Collaborative Innovation: An Analysis of Spillover Effects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-24, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:5:p:1890-:d:1597723
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/5/1890/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/5/1890/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xiaocheng Huang & Jianjun Zhou & Yake Zhou & Yong Xu, 2022. "Digital Economy’s Spatial Implications on Urban Innovation and Its Threshold: Evidence from China," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2022, pages 1-25, September.
    2. Zuo-jun Dong & Lan Xu & Jia-hui Cheng & Guo-jun Sun, 2021. "Major factors affecting biomedical cross-city R&D collaborations based on cooperative patents in China," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(3), pages 1923-1943, March.
    3. Liming Yang & Yanxia Chen & Xiuju Gao, 2023. "Spatial Spillover Effect of Digital-Finance-Driven Technology Innovation Level Based on BP Neural Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-14, January.
    4. Meijing Song & Yuan Xiao & Yige Zhou, 2023. "How Does the Smart City Policy Influence Digital Infrastructure? Spatial Evidence from China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Fei Fan & Huan Lian & Song Wang, 2020. "Can regional collaborative innovation improve innovation efficiency? An empirical study of Chinese cities," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 440-463, March.
    6. Hongxia Zhang & Zixuan Sun & Ehsan Elahi & Yuge Zhang, 2021. "Internet Development, Level of Industrial Synergy, and Urban Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-12, November.
    7. Hongyan Zhao & Wanteng Zheng & Irina Loutfoullina, 2022. "Digital Finance and Collaborative Innovation: Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-15, August.
    8. Chengwei Ge & Wendong Lv & Junli Wang, 2023. "The Impact of Digital Technology Innovation Network Embedding on Firms’ Innovation Performance: The Role of Knowledge Acquisition and Digital Transformation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-21, April.
    9. Liang Liu & Yuhan Zhang & Xiujuan Gong & Mengyue Li & Xue Li & Donglin Ren & Pan Jiang, 2022. "Impact of Digital Economy Development on Carbon Emission Efficiency: A Spatial Econometric Analysis Based on Chinese Provinces and Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-21, November.
    10. Panori, Anastasia & Kakderi, Christina & Komninos, Nicos & Fellnhofer, Katharina & Reid, Alasdair & Mora, Luca, 2021. "Smart systems of innovation for smart places: Challenges in deploying digital platforms for co-creation and data-intelligence," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    11. Abdul Karim Feroz & Hangjung Zo & Ananth Chiravuri, 2021. "Digital Transformation and Environmental Sustainability: A Review and Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-20, February.
    12. Zhihua Lai & Bifeng Wang & Xiang He, 2023. "Research on the Digital Transformation of Producer Services to Drive Manufacturing Technology Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, February.
    13. Da Gao & Yanjun Cao & Chang Liu, 2023. "The Low-Carbon Policy and Urban Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency: Evidence from a Spatial Difference-in-Difference Method," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-20, February.
    14. Jafari-Sadeghi, Vahid & Garcia-Perez, Alexeis & Candelo, Elena & Couturier, Jerome, 2021. "Exploring the impact of digital transformation on technology entrepreneurship and technological market expansion: The role of technology readiness, exploration and exploitation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 100-111.
    15. Caragliu, Andrea & Del Bo, Chiara F., 2019. "Smart innovative cities: The impact of Smart City policies on urban innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 373-383.
    16. Jingrong Tan & Lin Chen, 2022. "Spatial Effect of Digital Economy on Particulate Matter 2.5 in the Process of Smart Cities: Evidence from Prefecture-Level Cities in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-20, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiayi Li & Shujun Ye & Shujuan Wang, 2023. "Spatial Network Analysis on the Coupling Coordination of Digital Finance and Technological Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-22, April.
    2. Guo, Qingbin & Wang, Yong & Dong, Xiaobin, 2022. "Effects of smart city construction on energy saving and CO2 emission reduction: Evidence from China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    3. Jahangir Karimi & Zhiping Walter, 2021. "The Role of Entrepreneurial Agility in Digital Entrepreneurship and Creating Value in Response to Digital Disruption in the Newspaper Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-26, March.
    4. Xiaohua Wang & Tianyu Wan & Qing Yang & Mengli Zhang & Yingnan Sun, 2021. "Research on Innovation Non-Equilibrium of Chinese Urban Agglomeration Based on SOM Neural Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Xu, Ru-Yu & Wang, Ke-Liang & Miao, Zhuang, 2024. "The impact of digital technology innovation on green total-factor energy efficiency in China: Does economic development matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    6. repec:hal:journl:hal-03650216 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Long Xue & Qianyu Zhang & Xuemang Zhang & Chengyu Li, 2022. "Can Digital Transformation Promote Green Technology Innovation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-20, June.
    8. Yiping Sun & Xiangyi Li & Tengyuan Zhang & Jiawei Fu, 2022. "Does Trade Policy Uncertainty Exacerbate Environmental Pollution?—Evidence from Chinese Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-21, February.
    9. Wu, Haitao & Ba, Ning & Ren, Siyu & Xu, Lu & Chai, Jingxia & Irfan, Muhammad & Hao, Yu & Lu, Zhi-Nan, 2022. "The impact of internet development on the health of Chinese residents: Transmission mechanisms and empirical tests," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Hongfeng Zhang & Xiangjiang Ding & Yue Liu, 2023. "The Impact of Low-Carbon Pilot Cities on the Development of Digital Economy: Empirical Evidence from 284 Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-21, June.
    11. Fan, Xiaomin & Xu, Yingzhi, 2023. "Does high-speed railway promote urban innovation? Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    12. Palmyra Repette & Jamile Sabatini-Marques & Tan Yigitcanlar & Denilson Sell & Eduardo Costa, 2021. "The Evolution of City-as-a-Platform: Smart Urban Development Governance with Collective Knowledge-Based Platform Urbanism," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-25, January.
    13. Zhenhua Xu & Fuyi Ci, 2023. "Spatial-Temporal Characteristics and Driving Factors of Coupling Coordination between the Digital Economy and Low-Carbon Development in the Yellow River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-23, February.
    14. Zahoor, Nadia & Zopiatis, Anastasios & Adomako, Samuel & Lamprinakos, Grigorios, 2023. "The micro-foundations of digitally transforming SMEs: How digital literacy and technology interact with managerial attributes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    15. Hua Zhang & Qiwang Zhang, 2023. "How Does Digital Transformation Facilitate Enterprise Total Factor Productivity? The Multiple Mediators of Supplier Concentration and Customer Concentration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, January.
    16. Chenglei Xu & Shuxin Zhu & Boru Yang & Bin Miao & Yi Duan, 2023. "A Review of Policy Framework Research on Promoting Sustainable Transformation of Digital Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-26, April.
    17. Francisco Olmo-García & Fernando Javier Crecente-Romero & María Teresa Val-Núñez & María Sarabia-Alegría, 2023. "Entrepreneurial activity in an environment of digital transformation: an analysis of relevant factors in the euro area," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Hossein Rahnama & Kerstin Johansen & Lisa Larsson & Anna Öhrwall Rönnbäck, 2022. "Collaboration in Value Constellations for Sustainable Production: The Perspective of Small Technology Solution Providers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-20, April.
    19. Mendez-Picazo, María-Teresa & Galindo-Martin, Miguel-Angel & Perez-Pujol, Rafael-Sergio, 2024. "Direct and indirect effects of digital transformation on sustainable development in pre- and post-pandemic periods," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    20. Lea Primožič & Andreja Kutnar, 2022. "Sustainability Communication in Global Consumer Brands," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-16, October.
    21. Evgeniy Kutsenko & Sabyasachi Tripathi & Kirill Tyurchev, 2023. "Does complementarity matter for the emergence of new specialization industries in the regions of Russia?," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(9), pages 2126-2155, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:5:p:1890-:d:1597723. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.