Study on the Synergistic Evolutionary Effects of China's Digital Economy Core Industry and Energy Industry Based on DEA Malmquist Synergistic Development Model and Grey Correlation Analysis

The burgeoning digital economy has facilitated a transformation and upgraded within the energy industry, which, in return, continually guarantees robust energy security for the expansion of the digital economy. China's digital economy and energy sector have increasingly merged and innovated in the domains of technology, market, and operations in recent years. Consequently, an accurate assessment of the interplay between these two sectors and their evolving patterns is vital for policy formulation and execution concerning their joint development. Drawing on 14,520 authoritative departmental statistics from 30 Chinese provinces spanning 2011 to 2021, this study applies techniques such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)-Malmquist, grey correlation, and objective empowerment to develop a quantitative evaluation model for the reciprocal evolution of these industries finding that the own synergistic evolutionary effect of these two industries experienced fluctuations, declining from 0.8512 and 0.7535 in 2012 to 0.4590 and 0.4378 in 2021, respectively. Conversely, the comprehensive synergistic evolutionary effect between industries increased from 0.5879 in 2012 to 0.6841 in 2021. Building upon these findings, a series of development proposals are put forth to provide valuable insights and recommendations for advancing the high-level coordinated development of China's digital economy and energy industry.