Abstract: The applications of artificial intelligence technologies such as robots and the transformation and upgrading of export trade are both important issues of common concern in the academic circles at the stage of high-quality economic development. However, fewer literatures have explored the impact of enterprises' use of robots on China's export upgrading from a micro perspective.Based on this, by matching the data from the Database of Chinese Industrial Enterprises and the data from the Database of China Customs from 2000 to 2013, this paper studies the impact of the use of robots on export upgrading with the import of enterprise robots as a proxy variable. It is found that the application of industrial robots has significantly promoted the export upgrading of enterprises measured by export technology complexity, and the conclusion is still robust after replacing the measure index, replacingsamples at different dimensions and considering the problem of endogeneity. Further heterogeneity test shows that the promotion effect of the use of robots on export technology complexity is more obvious in local enterprises, general trade enterprises, high-tech industries and industries with lower competition level. The impact mechanism analysis shows that the use of robots can improve the productivity of enterprises, reduce variable production costs, improve the technical complexity of enterprises' export, and promote export upgrading.

Key words: export upgrade, industrial robots, export technology complexity, enterprise heterogeneity