The invention relates to a control system architecture of a modular multilevel converter. The control system architecture is characterized in that a control system comprises a three-level control architecture and an external extended AD (access device), and the three-level control architecture comprises a master controller, an auxiliary controller and module controllers. A DSP (digital signal processor) of the master controller is used for realizing a master control function, sampling arm currents, sharing voltages among sub-modules and designing algorithms, an FPGA (field programmable gate array) of the auxiliary controller is used for preprocessing capacitances and the voltages of the sub-modules, implementing modulation strategies, controlling the external extended AD and diagnosing and processing faults, and an FPGA of each module controller is used for sampling the corresponding capacitance and the corresponding voltage, driving switch tubes, extending PWM (pulse width modulation) signals and processing dead zones. The control system architecture has the advantages that communication protocols of the auxiliary controller and the module controllers are optimized, so that the usage of optical fibers is reduced, the problem that module controllers need to be synchronized is solved, the complexity of the system is reduced, and the cost of the system is lowered.