High power lasers are widely used in the various areas such as industry and defense. They are essential components of modern laser in material processing, laser remanufacturing and defense security. With the development of laser technology, high power lasers have made much progress. Many new types of lasers are appeared in recent years. Compared with the traditional lamp pumped lasers, the semiconductor lasers play a more and more important role in the development of economy because of smaller sizes, higher efficiency, less weight, longer lifespan and lower cost. The characteristics and development of semiconductor lasers and all solid-state or not all solid-state semiconductor pumped by semiconductor lasers are summarized in details. The improvements on performance of high power semiconductor lasers, the development trend of high power laser diode and applications in intelligent manufacturing technology in the future are also discussed.