Individual champion enterprises represent the highest level of global manufacturing sub-sectors and are the "leaders" and "pioneers" of high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry. Although many achievements have been made, individual champion enterprises still have some problems, such as core technology being restricted by others, low digital level, and insufficient market development. There is a lack of in-depth research on how individual champion enterprises achieve high-quality development. Therefore, exploring the path of high-quality development of individual champion enterprises is not only an important practical issue but also a key scientific issue that needs to be explored. This study constructs an analytical framework based on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) theoretical framework to explore how the five antecedent conditions of the degree of technological innovation (exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation), the degree of digitalization, the degree of specialization, the degree of internationalization, and the government subsidies promote the high-quality development of individual champion enterprises. Through the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of the business data of 38 individual champion enterprises, it is found that no single factor can constitute necessary condition for the high-quality development of individual champion enterprises, but a high degree of digitalization is an important driving factor. The "digitalization and specialization to help dual innovation type", "government-led digital empowerment to help exploratory innovation type", "digitalization and internationalization helped by utilitarian innovation type" and "digitalization and internationalization helped by government subsidies type" are four equivalent paths for the high-quality development of individual champion enterprises. The above four paths adapt to different organizational scenarios, and there is no unique optimal solution, which are substitutable for each other, providing enterprises with diversified-quality development choices. The non-high-quality development of individual champion enterprises shows the typical of "low degree of digitalization-high degree of specialization-low degree of internationalization". This article combines theory with practice by listing typical cases, and provides path guidance and experience for the high-quality development of China's champion enterprises.