Abstract
In recent years, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) has had a significant impact on economic development. This study examined the relationship between the level of AI development and economic growth in 28 Chinese provinces from 2005 to 2018, and we focused on the mediating role of the industrial structure. We found that the unreasonable state of the structure is an important reason behind the slowdown of China’s economic growth. The development of AI not only has a direct effect on economic growth, but can also improve economic slowdown by inhibiting industrial structure upgrading. Taking into account regional heterogeneity, we also conducted sub-regional regressions, and the results show that this mediating effect is particularly significant in the eastern, central, and western areas of China; the regression results also show that the development of AI technologies did not boost the economy before the 2008 financial crisis, but during the economic recovery period, the R&D and application of AI helped China’s economy to rebound. Thus, AI has gradually become an important power engine for high-quality and sustainable growth in China’s economy.
Highlights
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key technology leading the global technological revolution and industrial change, and developed countries are trying to reshape the global industrial landscape in the era of Industry 4.0 [1]
We examined the direct effect of AI on China’s regional economic development and the indirect role of industrial structure on the former relationship based on the fixed-effects model, the generalized method of moments (GMM), and stepwise regression analysis
This is consistent with the findings of existing studies that the application of AI can realize the intelligence of production and management, effectively improving labor productivity and achieving sustainable economic growth [41], and Hypothesis 1 is valid
Summary
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key technology leading the global technological revolution and industrial change, and developed countries are trying to reshape the global industrial landscape in the era of Industry 4.0 [1]. Artificial intelligence, as a general-purpose technology, is essentially the use of machines to simulate the cognitive functions of the human brain to replace some human mental labor, which improves productivity and can generate many highly knowledge-intensive jobs and affect the structure of labor [4]. We examined the direct effect of AI on China’s regional economic development and the indirect role of industrial structure on the former relationship based on the fixed-effects model, the generalized method of moments (GMM), and stepwise regression analysis. The results of this study help to inform the optimization of industrial structure and effectively direct technological progress to achieve sustainable economic growth in China. This article is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a mechanistic analysis, Section 3 describes the variable selection and the construction of the econometric model, Section 4 provides the regression results and discussion, and Section 5 provides the conclusions
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