AI Industry Development and Its Nonlinear Driving Mechanisms in China

This dataset provides the provincial panel data and related replication materials used in the study entitled “AI Industry Development and Its Nonlinear Driving Mechanisms in China.” The dataset covers 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2010 to 2023, excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan due to data availability limitations. The dataset is constructed to measure the development level of China’s artificial intelligence industry and to examine its spatiotemporal evolution and nonlinear driving mechanisms. The measurement of the AI industry follows the Classification of Strategic Emerging Industries (2018) issued by the National Bureau of Statistics of China. According to this official classification, the AI industry includes AI software development, AI system services, and intelligent consumer device manufacturing. The files include provincial panel data, processed indicators, variable descriptions, and replication materials. The main variables cover the AI industry development index and its associated driving factors, including innovation resources, policy support, human capital, marketization, financial support, industrial foundation, and other socioeconomic indicators used in the empirical analysis. The dataset can be used to reproduce the entropy weight measurement, spatiotemporal analysis, and generalized additive model estimation reported in the study. The original data were collected from publicly available official sources, including the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical Yearbook, China Science and Technology Statistical Yearbook, China Statistical Yearbook on High Technology Industry, provincial statistical yearbooks, and other publicly accessible official statistical sources. The processed dataset was compiled, cleaned, standardized, and organized by the authors for academic research and replication purposes.