The Green Upgrading of Digital Infrastructure: The Impact of Green Data Centers on Air Pollution

Abstract

The rapid expansion of the digital economy coincides with escalating environmental challenges, making Green Data Centers (GDC) an important form of digital infrastructure with potential implications for environmental governance. However, existing studies mainly evaluate data centers from the perspectives of energy efficiency, electricity consumption, and carbon emissions, while city-level evidence regarding their effects on ambient air pollution remains limited. Using panel data for 282 Chinese cities from 2013 to 2023 and a staggered difference-in-differences approach, this study provides quasi-experimental evidence on the air- pollution effects of GDC construction. The baseline results show that GDC construction reduces urban air pollution by approximately 1.5%. The findings remain robust across a series of alternative specifications and estimation strategies. Mechanism analysis indicates that GDC construction decreases air pollution by promoting informatization development and green technological innovation. Moreover, the pollution-reduction effect is stronger in cities with higher levels of economic development, administrative level, financial development, and tertiary industry proportion. By linking green digital infrastructure to urban air-pollution governance, this study extends the environmental assessment of data centers beyond conventional energy-efficiency and carbon-emission indicators.