The big-data era has arrived, which involves all professions and trades. Its impact on the medical field has gradually revealed. With the characteristics of big data "4V" (volume, velocity, variety, value) and its theory generality with TCM (holistic thinking, correlativity) as well as regularity of disease development, combined with present status of acupuncture clinical research, the influences of big-data era on trial design, data collection, analysis and sharing of acupuncture clinical research are discussed in this paper, aiming to provide references for solving the difficulties of study design and determining the future research direction of acupuncture clinical research.