Smart cities lighting the way: Optimizing energy structure and efficiency in the border areas

Underdeveloped border regions face critical challenges in energy efficiency and energy structure, for which smart cities, leveraging advanced digital technologies, offer promising solutions. This study employs text classification algorithms to quantitatively assess smart cities in China and systematically evaluate the impact of smart cities on energy structure and energy efficiency in border areas. The research indicates that smart cities significantly optimize energy structures and enhance energy efficiency, especially in border areas. The mechanisms include improving government regulatory levels through smart supervision investments and reducing market segmentation by enhancing information connectivity. The effect of smart cities is more pronounced in underdeveloped provinces, industrial cities, and resource-oriented areas than in other regions. In addition, investments by provincial governments in both smart supervision and information connectivity have a greater impact on energy consumption in border areas than such investments by municipal governments. This study provides an empirical basis for using smart cities to optimize energy structures and mitigate energy inefficiency in border areas and offers practical insights for effectively allocating government funds to maximize the benefits of smart city investments.