Abstract: Innovation consortia are increasingly recognized as pivotal instruments for advancing research and development activities, fostering collaborative innovation, and sustaining competitive advantages in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape. In the context of China’s dynamic innovation system, this study investigates the multifaceted determinants that influence the construction level of innovation consortia. By developing and empirically validating an integrated framework, the research endeavors to bridge the gap between theoretical constructs and practical insights, thereby providing valuable guidance. The primary objective of this study is to identify and validate the key factors that underpin the effectiveness and sustainability of innovation consortia in China. Recognizing that innovation is a complex interplay of technical, organizational, and environmental factors, the research emphasizes the significance of strategic alliances, resource integration, governmental support, and inter-organizational dynamics. This investigation holds considerable academic value as it enriches the current literature on innovation management by offering a multidimensional perspective on consortium construction. Furthermore, from a practical standpoint, the study aims to inform decision-makers regarding the optimal allocation of resources and the formulation of policies that can stimulate robust consortium development, ultimately contributing to the enhancement of national innovation capabilities. A mixed-methods approach is adopted to ensure a comprehensive analysis of the influencing factors. This study takes China's innovation consortium as the research object, and comprehensively collects the published data of 1734 innovation consortions. Firstly, the construction situation of China's innovation consortium from 2029 to 2024 is statistically analyzed, and the basic laws of the construction quantity, fields and related policies of innovation consortium are obtained. Secondly, through the three-level coding step of rooted theory, the influencing factors of innovation consortium construction are extracted from the original data. In this process, the three-dimensional theoretical framework of "strategic triangle view" is used for reference to better integrate macro and micro perspectives; Then, taking 356 innovation consortia with listed enterprise members as research samples, random forest algorithm was used to quantitatively verify and rank the importance of factors identified by the rooted theory, and a variety of machine learning algorithms were introduced to test the model. The empirical findings of the study reveal several critical insights. First of all, science and technology human resources have been proved to be the most critical factor to improve the level of innovation consortium construction, and the relatively important factors are the advantages of industrial clusters, market-oriented resources and innovation resources. The second most important is the system of achievement sharing and protection, the upgrading demand of the industry, the basic situation of the industrial chain and the support and incentive system. The importance of institutional factors within innovation consortia is relatively low. In summary, this research offers a timely and comprehensive examination of the influencing factors that determine the construction level of innovation consortia in China. By integrating theoretical perspectives with empirical validation, the study not only enriches the academic discourse on collaborative innovation but also provides actionable recommendations for enhancing the performance and sustainability of innovation networks. The insights derived from this analysis are expected to serve as a valuable resource for both scholars and practitioners seeking to navigate the challenges and opportunities in the contemporary innovation landscape.