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The impact of the digital economy is increasing, and its environmental effect has attracted more and more attention. The digital economy promotes the improvement of production efficiency and the government’s environmental governance capacity, and contributes to the reduction of urban carbon emission intensity. In order to study the impact of digital economy development on urban carbon emission intensity, this paper analyzes the theoretical basis of the digital economy on the reduction of carbon emission intensity, and then, based on the panel data of cities from 2011 to 2019, uses the two-way fixed effect model for empirical testing. The regression results show that the development of the digital economy has promoted the reduction of carbon emission intensity of cities, promoted the green transformation and upgrading of cities, and lays a foundation for China to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutralization through the improvement of human capital investment and green innovation level. The basic conclusion is robust by changing core explanatory variables, changing samples, replacing regression methods, and shrinking and truncating tests. The impact of the digital economy on urban carbon emission intensity varies with the location, grade and size of the city. Specifically, the development of the digital economy in cities in the eastern and central regions, cities at or above the sub provincial level, large cities and non-resource-based cities has promoted the reduction of urban carbon emission intensity. In terms of resource-based cities, the development of the digital economy in renewable resource-based cities and resource-based cities dominated by iron ore and oil mining has promoted the decline in urban carbon emission reduction intensity.