New quality productive forces provide the intrinsic momentum for achieving high-quality development. Scientifically grasping the current state and evolutionary characteristics of China’s new quality productive forces is the key breakthrough point for developing them in a way that suits local conditions. Based on the theoretical essence of new quality productive forces, this paper employed evolutionary economic geography theory to design a spatial differentiation framework encompassing regional knowledge foundations, technological linkages, and path dependencies. Further, from an industrial perspective, it constructed an evaluation index system for new quality productive forces covering traditional industries, strategic emerging industries, and future industries by utilizing entropy values, kernel density estimation, and the Dagum Gini coefficient. Findings revealed that China’s overall new quality productive forces level rose annually during the observation period, with the eastern region demonstrating a significant developmental advantage over other areas. Strategic emerging industries may represent a “new-quality industrial gap” in enhancing productivity levels. Regarding spatial correlation, polarization phenomena were observed in the levels of new quality productive forces across eastern, central, and western regions. Significant regional heterogeneity characterized the distribution of new quality productive forces levels, with inter-regional disparities between eastern and northeastern regions being the primary driver of widening gaps. These findings contribute to an objective understanding of China’s new quality productive forces development, clarify key directions for regional advancement, and promote coordinated development tailored to each region’s industrial foundations and resource endowments. They will provide actionable pathways for developing new quality productive forces in a context-specific manner.