EMBODIED INTELLIGENCE AND ECOLOGICAL WELFARE PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE CITIES

Amid the growing global climate crisis and the urgent need for coordinated international action to combat global warming, embodied intelligence (EI), a cutting-edge technology that integrates perception, cognition and decision-making, presents an innovative approach to overcoming the constraints of traditional eco-governance and improving ecological welfare performance (EWP).Using a panel dataset from 280 Chinese prefecture-level cities, we construct a composite EI indicator and apply a fixed-effects model to evaluate the impact of EI on EWP and its mechanisms.Our results demonstrate that EI has a significant positive effect on EWP.The mechanism analysis shows that EI enhances EWP mainly through promoting green innovation, boosting green total factor productivity and advancing financial development.Moderating effect analysis highlights that industrial structure upgrading, human capital and digital technology development significantly strengthen these effects.Heterogeneity analysis reveals that EI has a more pronounced ecological empowerment effect in western, northern, non-coastal and resource-based cities. Spatial effect analysis indicates that while EI boosts local EWP, spatial competition and resource diversion may lead to negative externalities for neighboring regions.This study deepens our understanding of the role of intelligent technologies in environmental governance, offering valuable policy and practical insights for sustainable development and ecological civilization goals.