The emergence of the digital economy has challenged many of the theories of traditional environmental resource economics. As an emerging production factor, data have a significant impact and substitutability with digital technology on fossil energy utilization, which also makes the impact of digital infrastructure construction (DIG) on the allocation of mineral resources easily underestimated. This study is based on China's DIG and explores its impact on regional mineral resource dependence (NRD) in 30 provinces of China. We find that, with a 1% increase in DIG, NRD declines by 7.6%, with a lag effect between the two. The analysis of heterogeneous characteristics revealed the heterogeneous effects and dissimilation roles of DIG's effect on NRD. In terms of heterogeneous effects, in regions with high levels of resource endowment and low digital-economy contributions, DIG's empowering effects were more obvious. In terms of dissimilation roles, the facility foundation has played a more prominent role than digital access. We also find that, enhancing resource allocation efficiency, innovation output efficiency, and energy utilization efficiency can mediate the effects of DIG on NRD. Our findings can offer policy insights for reducing NRD to promote high-quality DIG, achieving differentiated digital empowerment patterns, and building multichannel resource reduction paths. This work also has reference value for green transformation in other developing countries and resource-based industries under the 2030 sustainable development goals.

Economic transformation is an effective strategy for resource-based regions to avoid the “resource curse”. In China’s high-quality development stage, using new-generation IT to guide economic structure adjustment, industrial upgrading, and technological innovation is of great practical significance. It also helps regions achieve ecological and high-quality development. Based on SDM, this paper takes smart eco-innovation as the driving force for high-quality transformation. The system constructed is built from five aspects: innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing. Additionally, based on the interrelationships among the subsystems, this paper constructs causal loop diagrams and flow diagrams. Taking Daqing City in China as an example, it conducts a scenario simulation of high-quality transformation driven by smart eco-innovation. The finding shows that the combined policy effects of smart eco-innovation are the most significant for the high-quality transformation of resource-based regions. This study provides a new perspective. It explores the transformation of resource-based regions driven by a “smart eco-style” approach and provides references for such regions in China.