The invention discloses a novel energy-saving silica gel drying device and a process thereof, which can dry silica gel rapidly and efficiently with the drying thermal efficiency improved to 50 percent from 35 percent of the prior art. The device comprises at least one superheated steam drying unit and at least one hot air drying unit. A required material can be obtained through speed-raising drying and constant-speed drying of the superheated steam drying unit and drying of the hot air drying unit. The process is a superheated steam-hot air combined multi-stage silica gel drying process, the first three stages adopt superheated steam drying, the first-stage steam drying is mainly a speed-raising drying stage, the second stage and the third stage are respectively a stage of constant-speed drying at the corresponding temperature, wherein the silica gel drying speed is high, no breakage or cracking can be easily caused, good properties of the porous structure can be maintained, the drying quality is high, and the fourth-stage hot air drying can maintain a relatively high drying speed. The superheated steam-hot air combined multi-stage silica gel drying process has the advantages of good quality of the dried silica gel and high speed, and the closed drying circulation system has significant effect on energy conservation and emission reduction.