In the stepwise regression model, there are strong correlations between some of the components. If the linear regression method is adopted, the regression ill-posed problem will be very likely to occur, so the regression model obtained will be unreasonable. In order to solve this problem, independent component analysis (ICA) is introduced and the displacement prediction model of a arch dam is established using the fast independent component analysis (FastICA ) method based on the principle of independence of maximum entropy. In order to show the accuracy of the results, the stepwise regression model is established by stepwise regression method at the same time. The results show that the independent component regression method (ICR) can establish a more accurate regression model than the stepwise regression method. The reason is that the independent component regression analysis method does not eliminate the non-significant factors, which takes into account the effect of each factor on the dependent variable, so it is more in line with the actual situation.