Digital economy is a vital driving engine for new-type urbanization and continues to promote the regional economy. In this study, it adopts the entropy weight method is adopted to measure the digital economy and new-type urbanization in 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2021, and conducts an in-depth analysis on the relationship between them. The conclusions are: Digital economy has a significant role in promoting new-type urbanization and is regionally heterogeneous, especially the impact in eastern region; Moreover, through the mediating mechanisms analysis, it indicates that industrial structure and innovation level are important paths to promote new-type urbanization. Along with the increase of R establish a novel digital-industrial integration model and capitalize on the fundamental role of industrial transformation in new-type urbanization; and refine the innovation system and fully realize the marginal incremental effect of R&D intensity once it crosses the threshold.
Xiaolin et al. (2026) studied this question.