Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) is a large perennial herbaceous plant that is cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, and it is also one of the most efficient crops in the world in converting energy from sunlight into chemical energy. As an essential sugar crop and energy crop, sugarcane is receiving an increasing concern for its variety improvement. Traditional breeding and cultivation techniques have contributed a lot to increasing sugarcane yield and sucrose content. In recent years, development and application of biotechnology provide much help for genetic improvement of sugarcane. For convenience of breeders fully knowing advances in studies of sugarcane genetic improvement, this paper elaborated conventional breeding, genomics, GM technology, and molecular marker assisted breeding.