The Logic, Dilemmas and Pathways of New Technology Empowering the Development of New Quality Productive Forces—A Longitudinal Multi-Case Analysis from the Perspective of the Low-Altitude Economy

Empowering the accelerated development of new-quality productive forces through emerging technologies serve as a fundamental guarantee and a sustainable driving force for high-quality growth. Current research has largely focused on emerging technological innovation itself, overlooking the fact that empowering new-quality productive forces via emerging technologies represent an enabling dynamic between two complex systems. In particular, it has failed to adequately address the new directives outlined in the 15th Five Year Plan, "leading the development of new-quality productive forces" and "continuously fostering new-quality productive forces"—and has not provided sustainable pathways for such empowerment. To address these shortcomings, this study conducts an in-depth analysis of the intricate internal logic underlying the empowerment of new-quality productive forces by emerging technologies. Drawing on emergence theory, we establish a unified analytical framework demonstrating that this empowerment process conforms to the dual-complex-systems model and is influenced by three dimensions: "agent-restraint-directionality. "The study analyzes multiple representative cases within the low-altitude economy sector to validate the proposed framework. Findings reveal that empowerment follows a spiral logic: "technological foundation → technological advantage → cross-sector collaboration → market products → market demand → industrial linkages." Through theoretical and practical analyses, the study identifies and resolves current barriers at the pathway, technological, and informational levels, offering nine specific future pathways grouped into three key areas.