The research and application of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) in the modeling of near infrared spectrum at home and abroad in recent years are overviewed. The ANN includes back-propagation network, radial-basis function network, support vector machine, self-organizing feature mapping, generalized regression neural network, probabilistic neural network, wavelet neural network, fuzzy network and neural network ensemble etc.. The basic operation principles, advantages and disadvantages of these networks are summarized. Finally, the trend of ANN in near infrared spectrum modeling in the future is proposed according to the development of ANN and the demands in industry and agriculture.