Abstract: We report a first-principles calculation to investigate the structural instability of rutile TiO₂. The high pressure structural parameters are well reproduced. The calculated phonon disper-sion curves agree with experiments at zero pressure. Under compression, we capture a large softening around Γ point, which indicates the structural instability. From the high pressure elastic constants, we find that the rutile TiO₂ is unstable when the applied pressure is larger than 17.7 GPa. Within the quasi-harmonic approximation, the thermal equation of state, thermal expansion oefficient, bulk modulus, and entropy are well reproduced. The thermal properties confirm the available experimental data and are extended to a wider pressure and temperature range.