New Evidence in Sustainable Development: Does Digital Infrastructure Improve Energy Utilization Efficiency?

In the context of global digitization and sustainable development development, the interplay between digital infrastructure (DI) and energy utilization efficiency (EUE) has emerged as a crucial issue that deserves to be exploration. This paper attempts to investigate the impact of DI on EUE. Theoretically, an endogenous growth model is constructed in which data and energy factors are intricately intertwined, demonstrating that DI has the potential to improve EUE. Empirically, this paper uses several models to verify that DI improves EUE, and that this improvement is more pronounced in China's eastern and central regions, non-resource-based areas, and regions with high human capital. The mechanism analysis shows that DI improves EUE mainly by reducing capital misallocation and accelerating technological innovation. The threshold effect indicates that the impact of DI on EUE has a marginal incremental effect, as this impact becomes stronger after a single threshold of government digital attention and digital inclusive finance index is exceeded. Therefore, the government should increase digital attention, accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure, and strengthen its application in resource management systems. At the same time, it should promote the development of digital inclusive finance to improve the efficiency of resource use in digital infrastructure.