According to the critical point hypothesis (CPH), energy release would accelerate in power law before occurrenceof large earthquakes or failure of brittle materials. In the paper, CPH was studied by acoustic emission experimentsof large-scale rock samples. Three kinds of rock samples were used in the experiments. The tri-axial loading condition was applied under different loading histories. The released elastic energy (Acoustic emission) was recordedwith acoustic emission technique as microcracks emerged and developed inside the rock samples. The experimental results gave a further verification on the CPH. The elastic energy release of rock samples would accelerate before the failure even under different experimental conditions. Primary studies were also made on medium-termearthquake prediction by using accelerating energy release (AER) in the paper.