<p>Understanding the evolution behavior of acoustic emission (AE) preceding rockbursts is crucial for elucidating the underlying mechanisms and identifying precursor characteristics. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of failure characteristics, energy distribution, and AE response during rockburst based on systematic laboratory tests. The findings reveal that the evolution of AE count follows the critical acceleration model prior to rockbursts, exhibiting a distinct power-law singularity with respect to time-to-failure. Notably, the power-law index <i>p</i> of AE counting rates consistently falls within the narrow range of [0.9, 1]. Importantly, this critical acceleration scaling behavior (power-law singularity) in AE counts demonstrates remarkable insensitivity to confining pressure variations. Additionally, both the macroscopic energy dissipation rate and the AE radiation energy rate display synchronous power-law singularities. Further analysis establishes a significant scaling synchronization between the macroscopic dissipation energy rate and the AE energy rate during the critical rockburst stage (characterized by a double-logarithmic linear slope ≈ 0.5). This relationship elucidates the coupled evolution mechanism between dissipated energy and AE energy, indicating that the ratio of energy dissipation to radiation approaches a dynamic equilibrium point in the critical state. The discovery of this coupling mechanism not only provides fundamental insights into the energy-driven nature of rockburst but also reveals two universal laws: the critical acceleration law (Voight model) and the energy synchronization scaling law.</p>