Optical fiber constitutes the backbone network of communication in today's world, and has become the underlying framework of human activities. In recent years, the demand for optical fiber transmission bandwidth for the internet of things has increased dramatically, and the function of optical fiber has expanded from a single information transmission to the integration of information transmission and perception. Special silica optical fiber is an important part of achieving this goal. Its research and development have become hot spot. The complex structure and multi-component of specialty fibers pose challenges for their efficient fabrication. This paper summarizes the difficulties, exploration and progress of additive manufacturing technology in the efficient preparation of special silica optical fibers. First, it focuses on how to overcome the ceramicization and collapse of large-scale silica additive manufacturing under the additive manufacturing technology route based on UV curing, and develop suitable additive technology for the preparation of special silica fiber preforms, so that the required special fibers can be drawn. Then, the recent progress in the fabrication of silica fiber preforms using different additive technologies such as direct ink writing and selective laser melting is introduced. Finally, the existing problems and future development trends of additive manufacturing in the manufacture of silica optical fibers are briefly discussed and prospected.