The impact of artificial intelligence on green technology cycles in China

In the context of the global climate crisis being of great concern and the accelerated development and application of AI, it is of great significance to study how artificial intelligence (AI) empowers green technological innovation (GTI) in enterprises and assists them in green and low-carbon transformation. This paper explores the impact of AI on firms' GTI. By exploiting Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2022, we show that AI significantly enhances GTI, and the GTI incentive effect of AI is more prominent in SOEs, large-scale firms and manufacturing firms. Moreover, we show that AI promotes corporate GTI through labor structure (LS) upgrading, internal management (IM) optimization and environmental regulation (ER) enhancement. For policy implication, we further find that the green background of corporate executives (GB) and digital economy development concern (DE) play a significant positive moderating role between AI and corporate GTI. Finally, this paper puts forward corresponding policy recommendations for policy support, environmental regulation, internal management and international cooperation from the three perspectives of government, enterprise and international.