| 王倩,孙旭东,回禹杭,杜卓雅.智能算力部署与跨区域技术合作——来自企业异地合作创新的证据[J].数量经济技术经济研究,2026,(10):116-141 | | 智能算力部署与跨区域技术合作——来自企业异地合作创新的证据 | | Intelligent Computing Deployment and Cross-regional Technological Cooperation: Evidence from Firms’Cross-regional Collaborative Innovation | | | | DOI： | | 中文关键词: 智能算力部署 跨区域技术合作 技术封锁 关键核心技术 科技自立自强 | | 英文关键词: Intelligent Computing Deployment Cross-regional Technological Cooperation Technological Blockade Key Core Technologies Self-reliance and Strength in Science and Technology | | 基金项目: | | | 中文摘要: | | 促进跨区域技术合作，是应对脱钩断链风险、突破关键核心技术“卡脖子”困境的战略选择。本文剖析企业部署智能算力对跨区域技术合作的影响及作用机制。研究发现，智能算力部署显著促进了企业的跨区域技术合作，且合作对象主要面向集团内部企业、外部上市公司以及高校与科研院所，合作目的在于追求创新突破的实质性努力而非策略性迎合。上述效应源于智能算力部署通过提升搜寻能力，拓展组织边界与削减信任赤字，缓解了跨区域技术合作中的“搜寻难、整合难、信任难”三重难题。异质性分析表明，该赋能效应对处于非中心和低市场活力城市的企业更为显著，能够缓解“创新洼地”效应；在资本老化程度与资产专用性高的企业中更强，有助于盘活存量创新资源；在高科技行业与市场地位高的企业中更为显著，助力高水平跨区域联合攻关。进一步分析发现，智能算力部署赋能的跨区域技术合作可成为企业应对外部技术封锁的战略依托，促进探索性创新与关键核心技术突破。本文回答了在智能经济时代，企业如何依托算力赋能，增强跨区域技术合作，以突破外部技术封锁，为充分释放算力红利，加强区域间创新合作，依托国内大循环实现高水平科技自立自强提供了理论依据与政策参考。 | | 英文摘要: | | Global technological competition and geopolitical rivalry are intensifying. Promoting cross-regional technological cooperation has become a strategic choice for responding to external technological blockades and overcoming bottlenecks in key core technologies. This paper incorporates intelligent computing deployment, a form of new digital infrastructure, into the analytical framework of cross-regional technological cooperation and investigates its effects and underlying mechanisms.
Using data on cross-regional joint patent applications by Chinese A-share listed firms from 2008 to 2023, this paper identifies the timing of firms’ intelligent computing deployment from the acquisition of internet data center (IDC) operating licenses by firms or their subsidiaries and employs a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The results show that intelligent computing deployment significantly promotes cross-regional technological cooperation. Cooperation partners mainly include firms within the same corporate group, external listed firms, and universities and research institutes, while such cooperation represents substantive efforts to achieve innovation breakthroughs rather than strategic catering. To address potential endogeneity, this paper employs two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation using instrumental variables constructed from ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission-node distance and global semiconductor prices, together with the four-period lag of IDC status. After accounting for endogeneity, the findings remain robust. A series of robustness checks—including parallel-trend tests, alternative measurements, the exclusion of contemporaneous policy interference, and validity tests based on annual-report disclosures of intelligent computing technologies and deployment contexts—further supports the baseline findings.
The mechanism analysis reveals that intelligent computing deployment alleviates three major difficulties facing firms in cross-regional technological cooperation. First, it strengthens firms’ search capabilities, enabling them to search across greater distances, identify partners more accurately, and complete searches more quickly, thereby overcoming the “difficulty of search”. Second, it reduces agency costs and encourages firms to establish cross-regional R&D subsidiaries as “R&D agents”, thereby expanding organizational boundaries and mitigating the “difficulty of integration” associated with tacit knowledge. Third, it reinforces internal constraints and external endorsements, reduces trust deficits, and thus alleviates the “difficulty of trust” between cooperation partners.
The heterogeneity analysis shows that the enabling effect of intelligent computing deployment is more pronounced for firms located in non-central cities and cities with low market vitality, thereby alleviating the “innovation depression” effect. The effect is also stronger for firms with older capital stock and greater asset specificity, helping to revitalize existing innovation resources. Moreover, it is more significant for firms in high-tech industries and firms with higher market status, facilitating high-level cross-regional joint research. Further analysis indicates that cross-regional technological cooperation enabled by intelligent computing deployment can serve as strategic support for firms confronting external technological blockades, thereby promoting exploratory innovation and breakthroughs in key core technologies.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, it incorporates intelligent computing deployment into the theoretical and empirical framework of cross-regional technological cooperation and examines its strategic value in responding to external technological blockades. It reveals how intelligent computing deployment facilitates cross-regional technological cooperation and the cross-regional flow of innovation factors, thereby helping firms achieve technological breakthroughs and extending the literature on the economic effects of intelligent computing. Second, by examining the formation and operation of cross-regional technological cooperation, this paper abstracts its core constraints into three dimensions—search, integration, and trust—and opens the “black box” through which intelligent computing deployment affects cross-regional technological cooperation. The paper thus answers how firms in the intelligent economy can leverage intelligent computing to strengthen cross-regional technological cooperation and overcome external technological blockades. It provides theoretical and policy implications for fully releasing the dividends of intelligent computing, strengthening inter-regional innovation cooperation, and achieving high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology through China’s domestic economic circulation. | | 查看全文 相关附件： 下载数据代码附录 |
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