Based on the data of Chinese A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2015 to 2022， it examined the innovation effect of this place-based policy from the perspective of digital innovation by using the establishment of the National Pilot Zone for the Innovative Development of the Digital Economy （referred to as the “Digital Innovation Pilot Zone”） in 2019 as a quasi-natural experiment. It finds that the establishment of the Digital Innovation Pilot Zone reduces the total number of enterprises’ digital patent applications， and inhibits digital innovation to a certain extent， but the above inhibition mainly exists in the samples with lower quality innovation， more government subsidies， weaker intellectual property protection， and inefficient “zombie enterprises”. The establishment of the Digital Innovation Pilot Zone does not significantly affect the number of invention-based digital patent applications and leads to a shift in the innovation structure towards invention-based digital patents， suggesting that the reason for the decrease in digital patents of enterprises in the pilot zones lies in the leap in the innovation structure. The extended analysis shows that the establishment of Digital Innovation Pilot Zone significantly increases the application value and market value of enterprises， but has a limited effect on the total factor productivity， and the new “Solow paradox” in the era of digital economy is beginning to appear. It not only enriches the scope of research on the innovation effect of digital economy at the micro level， but also provides theoretical and empirical support for the government’s “red packet” of digital innovation policies.