Industrial intelligentization has become an important driving force for improving manufacturing quality and efficiency and promoting industrial structure upgrading. With the accelerating cross-regional flows of digital technologies, intelligent technologies, and production factors, the development of industrial intelligentization across regions has gradually transcended administrative boundaries and given rise to an interconnected spatial association network. On the one hand, this network facilitates the interregional flow of technology, information, capital, and talent, thereby strengthening collaborative innovation and the industrial division of labor across regions. On the other hand, it may affect the income gap between high- and low-skilled workers by reshaping the relative demand for workers with different skill levels. Existing studies have primarily focused on the level of industrial intelligentization within individual regions and its economic and social effects, while paying insufficient attention to the network structure formed by interregional intelligentization linkages and its implications for the labor market.
Using data from provincial-level administrative regions in China over the period 2005–2021, this study applies principal component analysis to construct an industrial intelligentization index based on three dimensions: infrastructure, production and application, and competitiveness and efficiency. A modified gravity model and social network analysis are subsequently employed to systematically characterize the spatial association network of industrial intelligentization among provinces and to examine the impact of its structural characteristics on the skill premium. The results show that the interprovincial industrial intelligentization network is highly interconnected, with increasingly close linkages and steadily improving structural stability. Shandong, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Shanghai occupy relatively central positions in the network, while Shanghai and Guangdong serve as key bridges connecting different regions. Different regions also perform distinct functional roles within the network. Further analysis indicates that greater overall network density, lower network efficiency, and higher individual-network betweenness centrality are all significantly associated with a lower skill premium.
This study extends the existing literature in two respects. First, unlike previous studies that rely on a single indicator to measure industrial intelligentization or treat regions as mutually independent units, this study constructs a multidimensional comprehensive evaluation system for industrial intelligentization, uses multidimensional indicators to identify the association network, and reveals the functional positions of different regions within China’s industrial intelligentization landscape. It therefore extends research on spatial associations and technology spillovers in industrial intelligentization. Second, this study incorporates the network structure of industrial intelligentization and the labor-market skill premium into a unified analytical framework. It provides new empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between industrial intelligentization and the distributional effects of the labor market from the perspective of spatial linkages.
The findings shed light on the interrelationships among industrial intelligentization, regional spatial coordination, and labor-market income distribution. They provide useful policy implications for administrative authorities seeking to leverage the hub functions of core provinces, optimize the spatial association network of industrial intelligentization, and strengthen interregional coordination. Such efforts may help mitigate the skill premium while facilitating industrial upgrading and promoting equitable development in the labor market.
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