基于2012—2022年A股制造业企业数据，构建新质生产力定量测度指标，并实证检验企业数实技术融合对新质生产力的影响及作用机制，研究发现企业数实技术融合促进新质生产力提升。机制检验表明，在企业转型升级方面，数实技术融合通过企业高科技化、高效能化、高端化转型升级提升新质生产力；从生产关系角度看，企业国有属性、企业间竞争、企业间合作、政府调控在数实技术融合提升新质生产力过程中发挥正向调节作用。进一步分析发现，在数字基础设施差、数字创新能力弱的地区，数字产业化企业无法通过数实技术融合对新质生产力发展产生促进作用；在数字基础设施较差、数字创新能力较弱的地区，产业数字化企业可以通过数实技术融合提升新质生产力发展水平；在数字基础设施好、数字创新能力强的地区，新型实体企业通过数实技术融合促进新质生产力发展的作用更加显著。

Amid the rapid progression of technological and industrial revolutions, China's traditional low-cost advantages are gradually diminishing, necessitating a shift toward competitive advantages grounded in core technologies. In response to this pivotal transformation, President Xi Jinping proposed the theory of "new quality productive forces", summarizing the developmental trajectory of advanced productive forces, and the recent trends in technological innovation, intelligentization, and green development, along with the crucial role of new technologies, industries, business models, and forms in contemporary productivity growth. The concept of new quality productivity has emerged in the wake of the digital economy's rapid expansion in recent years. This burgeoning economic paradigm is increasingly integrating with, enhancing, and redefining the contours of the real economy, serving as a pivotal force in its structural evolution and transformative energy dynamics. In this new phase of rapid technological and industrial transformations, the deep integration of the digital and real economies has become an essential pathway for advancing new quality productive forces.
To drive the development of new quality productive forces through the integration of the digital and real economies, it is essential to foster the convergence of digital and physical technologies. This convergence creates both the necessity and possibility for the integration of the digital and real economies. On one hand, digital technological innovation and application can leverage the diversity and rich application scenarios of physical technologies, accelerating the fusion of digital technologies with various applications and promoting the transformation of scientific achievements into actual productivity. This facilitates the scaling and industrialization of emerging technological fields, enabling enterprises to explore new domains and create new opportunities, thus providing new momentum for the development of new quality productive forces. On the other hand, physical technological innovation and the digital transformation of enterprises can capitalize on the additive, synergistic, and multiplying effects of digital technologies. This drives digital and intelligent transformation across R&D, production, and distribution processes, enhancing cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and revenue growth. It promotes the advancement of foundational capabilities and fosters new technologies, business models, and forms, all of which contribute to the development of new quality productive forces.
Therefore, this study, using data from China's A-share manufacturing enterprises from 2012 to 2022, explores the impact and mechanisms of digital-physical technology integration on the development of new quality productive forces. In light of the three foundational elements of new quality workers, production tools, and labor, this study expands upon these by incorporating the dimensions of technological innovation, digital transformation, and sustainable development. It proposes new indicators to evaluate the productivity of this new quality labor force. It is found that the integration of digital and physical technologies significantly promotes the improvement of new quality productive forces in enterprises. By exploring the mechanisms of enterprise transformation and upgrading, the study confirms that the integration of digital and physical technologies enhances new quality productive forces through channels such as high-tech, high-efficiency, and high-end transformations; it further reveals the role of production relations, demonstrating that the ownership attributes of state-owned enterprises, intensified inter-enterprise competition, deepened inter-enterprise cooperation, and government regulation all contribute to the enhancement of new quality productive forces through digital-physical technology integration;it uncovers that digital industrialization enterprises, industry digitalization enterprises, and new real economy enterprises are differentially influenced by regional digital infrastructure and digital innovation capabilities in terms of how digital-physical technology integration drives new-quality productive forces development.
In brief, this study provides a new quantitative measurement of new quality productive forces, and the findings of this study enrich the literature on the measurement methods and mechanisms of new quality productive forces and provide data-based evidence for the formulation of relevant policies. Future studies could examine the technological dichotomy between digital and physical technologies. Additionally, it would be insightful to investigate how the maturity and modularity of physical technologies influence their integration with digital counterparts. Beyond the synthesis of digital and physical technologies, future studies might also focus on the dynamic interplay and convergence of digital economy constituents—such as data elements and digital platforms—with traditional real economy components. This convergence at the elemental level can be perceived as a mechanism for integrating the digital and real economies.