###### Abstract  
China's high-tech parks have significant effects on driving national ecological innovation. Among them, ten world-class high-tech parks represent the highest level of development in China's high-tech industry. Understanding the development characteristics of national world-class high-tech parks is of great significance for guiding the construction of other parks and achieving the high-quality development of parks. Based on the evaluation data of over 200 indicators of national high-tech parks from 2013 to 2017, this study used the XGBoost classic machine learning algorithm to select the characteristic indicators of national world-class high-tech parks and establish an evaluation indicator system, and it identified four primary indicators of the world-class high-tech parks, including innovation development, enterprise development, international development, and economic development. The indicators cover 30 important sub-indicators and highlight the importance of innovation resource input indicators, such as \"use of technology activity funding from government departments\", \"full-time equivalent of R&D personnel\", and \"financial technology expenditure in high-tech parks\". Compared to the expert analysis, the application of the machine learning method in the evaluation of national high-tech parks improves the efficiency of selecting important indicators and makes the selection results more objective. The results of this research provide a reference value for guiding and promoting national high-tech parks to become world-class parks. national high-tech parks; world class; feature indicator system; machine learning; high-quality development +
Footnote †: journal: Applied  
0023310690  
high-tech zones to be transformed towards comprehensive development in the \"innovation economic ecosystem\". National high-tech zones play important roles in the innovation behavior of knowledge-intensive service enterprises [4]. Currently, the number of China's national high-tech zones is more than 170. And, according to the report \"National High-Tech Zone\" released by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, in 2017, the GDP of the total 156 national high-tech zones reached CNY 9.52 trillion, accounting for 11.5% of national GDP. The ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP was 7.09%, which is 3.3-times the national average. The number of patent applications and authorizations accounted for 20.8% of the national total. The number of authorized invention patents per 10,000 employees was more than ten-times the national average. National high-tech zones have become significant carriers for promoting technological progress and enhancing independent innovation, as well as powerful engines driving the transformation of regional economic structure and economic growth. However, the development of national high-tech zones in China exhibits a significant imbalance. In the \"National high-tech zone\" reports, China's national high-tech zones are classified into three tiers: world class, innovative parks, and other parks. Currently, there are ten high-tech zones in China that have been approved to join the sequence of world-class park construction, including Zhongguancun, Shanghai Zhangjiang, Shenzhen, Wuhan East Lake, Xi'an, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Suzhou Industry, Hefei, and Guangzhou high-tech zones. The development of world-class parks far surpasses that of other parks. According to the report, in terms of the total number of enterprises, the number of high-growth enterprises and listed companies in these ten world-class high-tech zones accounted for 45.3%, 57.8%, and 35.7%, respectively, of the total in all national high-tech zones. Regarding economic indicators, the operating income, industrial added value, export volume, and net profit of these ten world-class high-tech zones accounted for nearly half of the total in national high-tech zones.