Digital economy is a key force to promote economic and social development, it is of great practical significance to study whether it can improve ecological efficiency and its mechanism, grasp the opportunities of digital economy development, and realize high-quality economic development coordinated with efficient utilization of resources and effective protection of the environment. Based on the endogenous growth theory, externality theory and the characteristics of digital economy, the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2011 to 2023 were selected to measure the digital economy and ecological efficiency by using the entropy method and the unexpected super-efficiency SBM model. The results showed that: digital economy can significantly improve the provincial ecological efficiency; Technological innovation plays a part of the intermediary effect in the process of digital economy positively affecting ecological efficiency, and is an important mechanism for digital economy to promote the improvement of ecological efficiency. By dividing 30 provinces into three regions, East and west, and conducting regression respectively, it is found that the digital economy has the strongest effect on improving ecological efficiency in the eastern region, followed by the central region, and the western region is the weakest.