Exploration and development of shale gas， tight oil and gas， deep and ultra-deep well oil and gas， and deepwater oil and gas puts forward higher requirements for drilling tools and instruments. This paper introduces the new developments in drilling tools and instruments abroad. Drilling tools include efficient rock breaking bits（Aegis armor cladded bit， Crush & Shear? hybrid bit， adjustable smart-bit， StrataBlade concave diamond element bit and HyperBlade hyperbolic diamond element bit）， auxiliary rock breaking tools （Navi-Drill motor； NitroForce? high-torque， high-flow motor and 300℃-resistant positive displacement motor） and circulating subs（iCWD intelligent circulation drilling tool， IDisc intelligent circulation and disconnection tool， MOCS G2 circulation sub and JetStream? RFID circulation sub）； drilling instruments include rotary steerable tools（Lucida advanced-rotary-steerable tool， RST rotary steerable tool， VectorEDGE rotary steerable system， HALO high-performance rotary steerable system and NeoSteer at-bit steerable system） and MWD（TruLink high definitive dynamic MWD， IriSphere look-ahead LWD， HEX 200℃ high temperature LWD and QuestTM gyro while drilling ）. On this basis， the future development of domestic drilling tools and instruments is suggested. Finally， it is pointed out that China should complete the localization of core drilling tools and instruments as soon as possible， and continue to strengthen the research on low-cost alternative technologies to achieve economic and effective development.