Table 4 Digital City Competitiveness Index system measurements and data sources.

Urban information infrastructure construction

1. Number of cell phone base stations/city population

2. Length of long-distance fiber optic cable lines/city population

3. Number of Internet broadband access ports

4. Number of ipv4 addresses per 100 people

5. Number of 5 G base stations

1. China Information Statistical Yearbook

2. China City Statistical Yearbook

3. China Science and Technology Statistical Yearbook

Urban governance capacity

Internet government service capabilities

Using the “Blue Book on Government Internet Service Capability: Report on the Development of Internet Service Capability of Local Governments in China” score approximate measure

Urban service capability

1. Digital life: measured using the Digital Life New Services Index released in previous years;

2. Digital health care: measured using an approximation of the number of healthcare institutions in the city that have opened online healthcare services;

3. Digital transportation: approximated by the scale of the city’s investment in transportation infrastructure construction

4. Digital education: an approximation of the scale of the city’s investment in education

1. The new index of digital life services from the Internet Development Report of previous years;

2. China City Statistical Yearbooks and Statistical Bulletins;

3. CCID database

Urban industrial development

1. City digital economy output value

2. Number of urban digital economy-related enterprises such as big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence in cities

1. China City Statistical Yearbooks

2. The number of enterprises is crawled according to the keywords “big data”, “blockchain” and “artificial intelligence”.

Urban innovation capacity

1. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP

2. Number of granted patents

1. China City Statistical Yearbooks;

2. State Intellectual Property Office of China

Urban ecosystem

1. Urban forest coverage rate

2. The proportion of days with excellent urban air quality index in the year

1. China Forestry and Grassland Statistical Yearbook

2. China City Meteorological Bureau statistics