Bibliometric investigation of energy efficiency improvement from digitalization to smart efficiency

Digital technologies have become a core instrument for advancing green, low-carbon development. To address fragmented, cross-disciplinary evidence on where and how these tools deliver measurable efficiency gains, this study conducted a bibliometric analysis of 2082 Web of Science records using a reproducible toolchain and a unified terminology policy. The analysis quantified citation baselines, mapped clustered co-occurrence structures, and detected burst-driven trend evolution. The findings reveal a compact core of authors and hub institutions, a three-phase progression from measurement digitization to process digitalization and AI-enabled digital innovation, and a divergence between publication volume from per-article influence via average citation scores. The scientific value-added lies in integrating these hotspots and trends into interpretable maps that link areas of concentrated impact to existing gaps. Future efforts should prioritize interoperable data infrastructure and outcome-based incentives, scale high-return use cases through digital twins governed by large models, and establish open, replicable benchmarks to accelerate translation to measurable efficiency gains.