Investigating how the digital economy can improve the innovation efficiency of the high-tech industry in the context of big data. This study uses a three-stage DEA technique to measure the innovation efficiency of high-tech businesses. The index system is created by selecting innovation inputs and outputs and adjusting them with exogenous environmental factors. A thorough and organized method for evaluating digital economy indices has been developed, and weights are allocated to the indexes based on spatial autocorrelation. In the end, the Tobit model is utilized to investigate the impact of the digital economy’s growth on the innovation capacity of high-tech industries. The innovation efficiency of high-tech sectors is positively influenced by the digital economy index, increasing by 0.2102% for every 1% increase. The digital infrastructure regression coefficients for the eastern, central, and western areas are 0.00045, -0.0015, and 0.00076, respectively.