Abstract: The surveillance and early warning of infectious diseases is an important approach for the effective prevention and control of infectious diseases. However, since the establishment of the network-based direct reporting system for notifiable infectious diseases in 2004 and launch of the automatic early warning system for infectious diseases in 2008 in China, the problems in the practice, such as single data source, limited credible information provided and relatively lagging early warning time threshold, have been found, resulting in difficulty to meet the requirement of early warning of emerging infectious diseases and diseases of unknown pathogens. Recently, with the continuous development and application of information technology, as well as the continuous improvement of infectious disease diagnosis, treatment and surveillance techniques, the research and practice of early warning of infectious diseases related to big data have gradually become a hot topic. This paper briefly introduces the definition and characteristics of big data, systematically summarizes the development, application, advantages and limitations of various big data sources in infectious disease surveillance and early warning, and introduces the key data analysis techniques and methods to provide reference for the establishment of infectious disease surveillance and early warning mechanism and platform based on big data, and further improve the capability of infectious disease surveillance and early warning in China.