Green Data Center Pilots and Urban Coordinated Development of Digital and Green Transformation: Evidence from China

The rapid expansion of digital infrastructure is creating a growing need to reconcile computing demand with urban environmental goals. Yet whether greener computing facilities can contribute to the joint advancement of digitalization and green development remains insufficiently understood. This study evaluates China’s National Green Data Center (NGDC) pilot and its implications for the collaborative development of urban digitalization and greenization (CDG). The empirical analysis draws on 284 prefecture-level cities over 2011–2023 and leverages the phased introduction of NGDCs within a multi-period DID design. The estimates indicate that NGDC implementation is associated with an approximately 5.86% increase in urban CDG relative to the sample mean, with improvements observed in both the digital and green subsystems. The mechanism results are consistent with technological innovation, computing-industry agglomeration, and urban energy efficiency as potential transmission channels. The effect is stronger in telecommunications- and Internet-sector pilots, in cities covered by national urban agglomeration policies, and in cities with greater public environmental attention. Policy-interaction analyses further identify positive interaction effects between NGDC and digital-oriented policies, including Broadband China and artificial intelligence pilot zones, whereas no statistically identifiable additional interaction effect is found for green-oriented policies, including green finance and zero-waste city pilots. These findings demonstrate that greening computing infrastructure can translate infrastructure-level efficiency improvements into broader urban digital–green transformation, while highlighting functional complementarity as the key condition for effective policy coordination.