Extreme learning machine (ELM) is characterized by good generalization performance, fast training speed and less human intervention. With the explosion of large amount of data generated on the Internet, the learning algorithm in the single-machine environment cannot meet the huge memory consumption of matrix computing, so the implement of distributed ELM algorithm has gradually become one of the research focuses. In view of the research significance and implementation value of distributed ELM, this paper first introduced the research background of ELM and improved ELM. Secondly, this paper elaborated the implementation method of distributed ELM from the two directions: ensemble and matrix operation. Finally, we summarized the development status of distributed ELM and discussed the future research direction.