Under the backdrop of rapid iteration in the global industrial chain, accelerating the modernization of the logistics industrial chain is a key measure for building a modern industrial system, enhancing the smoothness of economic circulation and international competitiveness. The in-depth development of the digital economy can promote industrial transformation and upgrading, enhance the vitality of factor circulation, and empower the modernization of the logistics industrial chain. Based on the provincial panel data of China’s digital economy and the modernization of the logistics industrial chain from 2011 to 2022, the impact and mechanism of the digital economy on the modernization of the logistics industrial chain are empirically examined. The research finds that the digital economy significantly promotes the modernization of the logistics industrial chain, and this promoting effect has regional heterogeneity. The mechanism analysis shows that the digital economy promotes the modernization of the logistics industrial chain through technological innovation. Threshold effect analysis indicates that the promoting effect of the digital economy has a nonlinear increasing characteristic. Only when the level of human capital crosses the threshold value does the promoting role of the digital economy become apparent.