The construction and operation of long-distance pipelines in China and abroad have entered the digital era. The development and application of a variety of new technologies provide technical support for the advancement of pipeline intelligent management. Meanwhile, there are also challenges posed. Here, the development status of pipeline intelligent technology at China and abroad was investigated, and based on the current application of pipeline intelligent technology in the oil and gas pipeline industry, a core pipeline intelligent management architecture of "data layer-service layer-application layer" was established. Further, the management principles were proposed, including making the pipeline data management throughout the full life cycle of pipeline with top design, grasping the main contradictions under the guidance of problems, and correctly handling the relationship between data, technology, production and management. Finally, through the study of typical pipeline intelligent management cases, the application trend of multi-technology integration was summarized to provide a reference for China's pipeline intelligent management.