Ocean drilling is one of the main means for human beings to understand the ocean and exploit deep-sea resources. The technical level and ability of ocean drilling vessels determine the process of marine resources exploitation, and are also an important guarantee for building China into a strong maritime power. The technical level of the deep-sea drilling system equipment matched with ocean drilling vessels directly determines the function and progressiveness of ocean drilling vessels. This paper investigates the drilling system equipment of three major ocean drilling vessels in the world (the US's “Glomar Challenger” and “JOIDES Resolution” and Japan's “Chikyu”) and the configuration of the drilling systems of the “Offshore Oil 708” deep-sea survey ship, the “Marine Geology No. 10” survey ship, and the “Blue Whale No. 1” ultra-deepsea drilling platform that are independently built in China. Combined with the functions and operation modes of China's ocean drilling vessels, the overall scheme and the configuration requirements of the key equipment for the drilling system of future ocean drilling vessels are proposed with consideration of the strategic needs of ocean scientific drilling, offshore oil and gas drilling, hydrate trial production and deep-sea mineral resources exploration. Finally, the state-of-the-art of the key equipment in China is briefly analyzed to provide implementation suggestions.