Volume 31: Clean Energy Technologies towards Carbon Neutrality

Artificial Intelligence Impact on Energy Efficiency of Firms: Evidence from Firm-level Data in China Juan Li, Shaoqi Ma, Jiamin Wang

Abstract

This paper employs the robot application data from the International Federation of Robotics and China’s micro firm-level data to empirically investigate the impact of artificial intelligence on the energy efficiency of firms. Artificial intelligence has a positive and significant impact on improving Chinese firms’ energy efficiency. Controlling the endogeneity issues, the results show robust. Artificial intelligence affects the energy consumption of enterprises through scale, structural, and efficiency effects. Structural and efficiency effects are greater than the impact of scale effects. Therefore, artificial intelligence saves energy consumption and improves energy efficiency.

Keywords Artificial intelligence, energy efficiency, total factor productivity, scale effects, structural effects, efficiency effects