Degenerative disc disease is very common in clinical, and 40% of low back pain is caused by lumbar disc degeneration. Clinical surgery can relieve symptoms in the short term, but it cannot achieve the purpose of cure. In discectomy surgery, the artificial nucleus pulposus material such as silicone rubber, stainless steel, and hydrogel material is used to fill the defect of nucleus pulposus, in order to maintain a sufficient height of disc. With the continuous development of tissue engineering and materials science, it will be possible to use stem cells or multipotent cells to cure disc disease, and to restore the physiological function of the intervertebral disc. Now the problem that tissue engineering still has to face is how to find an extracellular scaffold which has similar structure and function of the nucleus pulposus to provide a suitable environment for the growth and physiological activity of nucleus pulposus cells. The article reviews the history of the development of artificial nucleus material and the current research situation.