Abstract: The emergence of new quality productive forces presents new opportunities for deepening financial transformation and industrial upgrading, while the study of the relationship between financial development and industrial development remains an enduring and evolving field. Based on provincial-level panel data from 2011 to 2023, this study empirically examines the effect of sci-tech finance development on high-tech industry upgrading. The findings reveal the following: First, the development of sci-tech finance effectively promotes the transformation and upgrading of industries toward high value-added sectors, exerting a significant positive impact on high-tech industry upgrading. Second, grounded in the concept of new quality productive forces, this study elucidates the mechanisms through which sci-tech finance operates along three dimensions: technological innovation, labor productivity, and industrial agglomeration. The empirical results indicate that the level of technological innovation, labor productivity, and the agglomeration of high-tech industries all play significant mediating roles in the process whereby sci-tech finance facilitates high-tech industry upgrading. Third, regional heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect of sci-tech finance development on high-tech industry upgrading is more pronounced in the eastern and central regions of China. This study provides theoretical support for the construction and refinement of the sci-tech finance development system, offers a scientific basis for selecting pathways through which sci-tech finance can serve high-tech industry upgrading, and holds policy implications for guiding the coordinated development of sci-tech finance and industrial upgrading, as well as for cultivating new quality productive forces.