With the arrival of the intelligent era, the world shipbuilding industry and shipping industry are gradually focusing on intelligent ships, and the research of intelligent ship system has become one of the hot issues. This paper introduces the intelligent ship and the intelligent ship system, reviews the state-of-the-art and the development characteristics of the intelligent ship system both home and abroad, and prospects the development trend of the ship intelligent system. It is proposed to accelerate the research and development of the critical technologies and key system equipment through the guidance of national key projects for intelligent ships, orderly promoting the development of the intelligent ship system for various ship types.