Strategic emerging industries represent a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation direction, with distinctive characteristics of high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, and are related to the long-term development of the overall social and economic situation. Using 1248 strategic emerging enterprises in the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2011 to 2022 as research samples, a pilot demonstration special action for intelligent manufacturing was established as a quasi natural experiment. Multiple period double difference models and mediation effect models were used to empirically test the impact and mechanism of digital transformation on dual innovation in strategic emerging industries. The results indicate that based on the policy endorsement of the intelligent manufacturing pilot demonstration special action, digital transformation has a positive driving effect on the dual innovation of strategic emerging industries. This result still holds true after a series of robustness tests. The mediation effect test found that technology diffusion and human capital upgrading play a mediating role in the dual innovation process of strategic emerging industries driven by digital transformation. The heterogeneity test of dual innovation types and the regions to which enterprises belong found that digital transformation has a stronger driving effect on exploratory innovation in strategic emerging industries than exploitative innovation, and its promoting effect on dual innovation in strategic emerging industries in the eastern region is significantly higher than that in the central, western, and northeastern regions.Expansion testing has found that dual innovation in strategic emerging industries can positively promote the development of new quality productivity. Therefore, we should start by comprehensively deepening the coverage of special actions, establishing and improving technology diffusion service mechanisms, and building a regional industrial coordinated development network, in order to provide useful references for the high-quality development of strategic emerging industries.