Air pollution emissions can exceed the environmental self-purification capacity and trigger hazardous meteorological events, which have non negligible impacts on all aspects of society. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between China’s manufacturing industry benefits and air quality, taking into account the role of government policies in the era of big data, and to study the change points in the time series relationship between industry benefits and air quality. First, we apply and analyze big data and estimate values based on the maximum deviation method. Then, gray relational analysis is used to identify change points, which occur in 2005 and 2010 for both industry benefits and air quality. The total study period is divided into three subperiods: 1998–2005, 2006–2010, and 2011–2017. We find that air pollution control policy was relatively extensive from 1998 to 2005, and that there was a negative relationship between air quality and manufacturing industry benefits. From 2006 to 2010, a positive relationship gradually appeared and, since 2011, with the popularization of big data technology in policy making and environmental governance, intergovernmental cooperation has deepened and manufacturing enterprises have been more actively involved in governance. Consequently, the positive relationship between air quality and the comprehensive benefits of the manufacturing industry has remained stable. Finally, suggestions for policy makers and manufacturing companies are made from the perspectives of system construction, integration, and differentiation, big data challenges, and enterprise innovation.