Technological innovation is the core element of developing new quality productive forces. The advancement of new quality productive forces relies heavily on technological innovation. However, original and disruptive technological innovations require sustained financial investment and protracted innovation cycles, which dampen enterprises’ motivation for technological breakthroughs, hindering the formation and development of new quality productive forces. Therefore, addressing the long-term financial needs faced during the formation and development of new quality productive forces is a critical issue for both government and enterprises. This paper leverages the CSMAR Database and Wind Database to study listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2011 to 2022. Drawing on the research methodology of Zhang Xuelan et al. (2024) and incorporating President Xi Jinping’s keynote speeches on new quality productive forces, a new quality productive forces indicator system at the enterprise level is constructed. Utilizing the entropy method to compute the data of new quality productive forces, this study empirically examines the impact of patient capital on new quality productive forces and its underlying mechanisms. Research finds that patient capital, as a capital that pursues stable investment, strategic investment, and long-term investment, is a catalyst for promoting qualitative changes in laborers, labor materials, labor objects, and their optimized combinations, and can provide a strong impetus for the formation and development of new quality productive forces. At the mechanism level, patient capital can be divided into stable equity and relational debt, both of which can significantly improve the productivity of new quality productive forces, and the main path of action is to improve the internal control quality of the enterprise internally and reduce the degree of information asymmetry between the enterprise and external stakeholders externally. The heterogeneity results indicate that the effect of patient capital on improving the new quality productive forces of enterprises is more significant in larger enterprises, enterprises with lower market competition, and enterprises with higher equity concentration. Compared with existing research, this study makes two main contributions. Firstly, previous studies on patient capital have been limited, primarily focusing on its economic consequences, such as enterprise performance and innovation. There is a lack of exploration of the new quality productive forces that can more comprehensively measure the high-quality development of enterprises. This paper delves into the microscopic and comprehensive characteristics of patient capital, exploring how it creates conducive internal and external environments and provides continuous financial support for the formation and development of new quality productive forces. Secondly, current research on influencing factors of new quality productive forces in China can be categorized into technological innovation and institutional regulatory aspects, including data element innovation and government regulation. However, the focus on capital elements of business entities is insufficient. Moreover, these factors fail to explain why there are significant differences in new quality productive forces among Chinese enterprises under the same conditions of data element innovation and government regulation. To further investigate the formation and development of new quality productive forces in China, this paper attempts to unveil the “black box” of enterprise capital elements, exploring the impact of patient capital on new quality productive forces through stable equity and relational debt, and conducting more in-depth theoretical and empirical research to understand how patient capital influences the formation and development of new quality productive forces, thereby promoting high-quality economic and social development and highlighting the important role of patient capital. This helps strengthen government policy support for patient capital, guide capital to strategically invest in emerging industries, encourage regulatory authorities to work equally with local governments, enterprises, and banking and insurance institutions, guide the continuous increase of long-term capital supply, deeply stimulate the innovation potential of enterprises, and nurture stronger productivity.