Artificial intelligence is a key driver of cultivating new quality productive forces in China. Exploring how the synergy between digitalization and green transformation can propel future industrial development is crucial for overcoming bottlenecks. This study addresses three main questions. First, it examines whether digital transformation, green transformation, and their synergy can drive China’s future industrial development and thereby inform industrial layout. Second, it analyzes how this synergy influences future industrial development by evaluating three mediating channels: green financial investment, green innovation capacity, and industrial structure. Third, it investigates whether the combined digital-green transformation generates spatial spillover effects, providing theoretical support for intercity industrial linkages and spatial planning. Key findings are as follows. First, digital transformation significantly drives future industrial development, whereas green transformation shows mainly long-term effects. The synergy between digitalization and green transformation compensates for the short-term limitations of green transformation, enabling joint short-term and long-term promotion of future industrial development. Second, the synergy advances development through three pathways: attracting green financial investment, strengthening green innovation capabilities, and optimizing industrial structure. Third, heterogeneity analysis reveals that the synergistic effects are stronger in larger cities, in cities with more developed digital economies, and in cities with higher environmental awareness. Fourth, this synergy generates significant spatial spillover effects, facilitating coordinated industrial layouts across cities. Overall, this study deepens our understanding of the drivers of future industrial development, the mechanisms through which dual transformations empower that development, and the spatial heterogeneity of these processes. This study offers several policy implications. First, it highlights that digital transformation can empower future industrial development by accelerating industrial digitalization and digital industrialization, thus promoting the advancement of Digital China and consolidating the digital dividends in industrial growth. Second, guided by sustainable development principles, policymakers should formulate long-term plans to extend the benefits of green transformation to a broader range of industries. Additionally, it is crucial to fully leverage the synergistic effect of dual transformation—“1+1>2”—to ensure that green dividends are delivered more swiftly and reliably to industrial development. Third, understanding the mechanisms through which dual transformation impacts future industrial development can harness green finance, innovation capacity, and industrial layout as new drivers for industrial growth. Finally, the synergistic integration of digitalization and green transformation demonstrates significant spatial spillover effects. This integration facilitates the coordinated development of digital and green industries across cities, thereby unlocking their spatial potential for future industrial growth.