Abstract: Manufacturing is an important foundation of the real economy.It is the key for China to become a great manufacturing country by promoting the digital and intelligent development of manufacturing in technological innovation.As the incubator of innovation activities,the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is showing strong momentum in the development of manufacturing industry.Taking the listed manufacturing enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta as samples,this paper divides the technology adoption levels of enterprises in different years by using the finite mixed model,and then investigates the impact of knowledge capital investment on enterprise innovation performance.The results show that the technology adoption ability of manufacturing enterprises is generally low,and knowledge capital investment can significantly improve the enterprises productivity,while showing a positive correlation with the current stage of technology level.At the same time,the difference of enterprise heterogeneity effect is obvious,the effect of export enterprises is better than that of non-export enterprises,and the significance of private enterprises is higher than that of other ownership enterprises.

Key words: knowledge capital, technology adoption, innovation performance, Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration