The αth-order inverse system control model based on support vector machine（SVM）is proposed to realize lift control of electro-hydraulic variable valve system.The proposed method is suitable for the control problems of high order and non-linear systems.The off-line inverse system model of the electro-hydraulic variable valve system is established according to the system input and output.A pseudo-linear system is obtained after cascading the SVM inverse system before the original system.The simulation results show that good control characteristics of the VVS can be achieved by utilizing αth-order inverse system control model which is based on SVM.