The Driving Effect of AI Policy on the Integration of Digital and Physical Systems: A Double Machine Learning Analysis Based on the Perspective of High-Tech Product Export Resilience

The central thesis of this study asserts that the profound integration of the digital and real economies is the pivotal driving force of the contemporary scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. The advent of a novel generation of information technology, including artificial intelligence, has precipitated a rapid reconstruction of the global industrial chain. Consequently, the digital economy has emerged as a pivotal domain for the reconfiguration of the global competitive landscape. In light of the aforementioned context, the present study proposes a dual machine learning model, based on panel data from the top 30 countries in China's high-tech product exports. The objective of this model is to ascertain the impact of AI policy on the integration of digital and real economies. The findings of the study indicate that AI policy has a substantial impact on the degree of integration between digital and real economies. The average treatment effect observed is 0.1942, which is statistically significant at the 1% level of confidence. The results further demonstrate that an increase of 1 unit in the intensity of AI policy leads to an enhancement of approximately 0.19 units in the coupling between digital and real economies.