In the era of the digital economy, data serves not only as a carrier of information but also as a new factor of production. Particularly, data created, collected, and obtained by the government in the course of performing official duties and providing public services are rich in variety, large in scale, and important and authoritative within their fields, and they are also considered strategic resources for national development. With the continuous growth and accumulation of public data resources, assessing the impact of open public data has become a significant topic of interest in both theoretical and practical circles.

This paper leverages the launch of the public data open platform as a quasi-natural experiment and employs the DID method to empirically test the impact of public data openness on corporate digital technology innovation. The study reveals that public data openness significantly promotes digital technology innovation, particularly in the realm of digital technology invention innovation. Mechanism testing indicates that strengthening the supply of data elements, promoting digital investment, and reducing the perception of policy uncertainty are the primary channels through which public data openness stimulates digital technology innovation. Further analysis shows that the promoting effect of public data openness on digital technology innovation is mainly evident in non-state-owned enterprises and areas with relatively comprehensive digital infrastructure. Additionally, the higher the quality of public data openness, the higher the level of digital technology innovation.

The rapid development and widespread application of digital technology have given rise to the digital economy, with data as the foundation of digitization, networking, and intelligence, and a key production factor for the development of the digital economy. While existing literature has thoroughly explored the economic effect of digital economic development or digital technology application, there is a relative dearth of research from the perspective of data elements. This paper utilizes the unique policy scenario of the public data open platform to evaluate the digital innovation effect of data elements, which not only effectively supplements the theoretical analysis and empirical research on the economic value of data as a production factor, but also enriches the knowledge base for evaluating the economic effect of public data openness. It also holds significant practical importance and policy implications for accelerating the development of data productivity and promoting the high-quality development of the digital economy.