Green digital empowerment: The impact of green digital infrastructure construction on energy utilization efficiency

Excessive energy consumption and the resulting environmental pollution constrain green economy growth, with enhanced energy utilization efficiency (EUE) offering a pathway to resolution. This study investigates how green digital infrastructure (GDI) affects EUE and its underlying mechanisms, taking the green data center pilot policy as an exogenous shock to GDI construction, and using staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) and Double Machine Learning (DML) approaches. The results show that GDI increases EUE by an average of 27.50% of a standard deviation. GDI enhances EUE by fostering digital talent agglomeration, facilitating green and digital technological innovation, and stimulating green and digital entrepreneurship vitality. Furthermore, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the co-agglomeration of manufacturing and service industries generate synergies with GDI, thereby strengthening its positive effect on EUE. Cities with higher levels of informatization, non-resource-based cities, and cities with stronger intellectual property protection derive substantially larger EUE gains from GDI than their counterparts. This study provides empirical evidence and policy insights for achieving the dual goals of reducing energy consumption and promoting economic development through GDI development.