With its ability to increase total factor productivity through innovations, reallocation of resources, and structural transformation, the digital economy has become one of the essential driving forces behind regional cooperation and ecological sustainability. With this theoretical background in mind, this paper constructs indices for the advancement of digital economies and high-quality development based on the entropy weight method using panel data from 30 provinces between 2014 and 2023. A series of regressions, mediations, thresholds, and heterogeneous tests subsequently explore the promotion process. The main conclusions can be summarized into four points: scientific and technological innovation is the primary pathway of how the digital economy influences high-quality development; the stimulating influence is most pronounced on innovative development and common development, a conclusion that stands up to various robustness tests; the connection is non-linear and threshold-dependent; and geographic locations play an important role, as western provinces benefit more from the development of digital economies compared to their eastern and central counterparts.
