Compared with high voltage direct current（HVDC）transmission，the primary system and secondary system of modular multilevel converter based high voltage direct current（MMC-HVDC）are both more complicated，and to a certain extent the characteristics of the controllers determine the properties of the MMC-HVDC system.Using the rapid control prototype（RCP）can accelerate the development of the MMC-HVDC controller;based on the PCI extension for instrumentation（PXI），the rapid control prototype for MMC-HVDC system is developed.First，based on the PXI device，the control strategy for the MMC-HVDC system is designed，the control program is developed and debugged，the input/output boards and ports are configured，and the rapid control prototype for MMC-HVDC is built.Second，the MMC-HVDC primary system model based on the real-time digital simulator（RTDS）is developed.Finally，the RTDS-PXI hybrid real-time simulation system is formed.The experimental results of hybrid real-time simulation show that the designed rapid control prototype of MMC-HVDC system has the ability to start the MMC-HVDC system，balance the capacitor voltage of the sub-modules，control the bus voltage and active power in addition to desirable steady-and transient-state performance.