diff --git a/cmake/external/protobuf.cmake b/cmake/external/protobuf.cmake
index e05b7694ddf1e1652b00f156cde1a2d433c9fc46..4c79d9d72a83ca9b61c934016d8c3405c39821e6 100644
--- a/cmake/external/protobuf.cmake
+++ b/cmake/external/protobuf.cmake
@@ -231,7 +231,7 @@ FUNCTION(build_protobuf TARGET_NAME BUILD_FOR_HOST)
     )
 ENDFUNCTION()
 
-SET(PROTOBUF_VERSION 3.1)
+SET(PROTOBUF_VERSION 3.1.0)
 
 IF(NOT PROTOBUF_FOUND)
     build_protobuf(extern_protobuf FALSE)
diff --git a/python/requirements.txt b/python/requirements.txt
index 5a70f1aa3ffc0ab6d4d148eb5bc26981784f2d32..36bd5d4261cc7aa78d26b8c8ddfd87abd4f4e2e2 100644
--- a/python/requirements.txt
+++ b/python/requirements.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 requests==2.9.2
 numpy>=1.12
-protobuf==3.1
+protobuf>=3.1.0
 recordio>=0.1.0
 matplotlib==2.2.3 # TODO: let python3 paddlepaddle package use latest matplotlib
 rarfile