This paper addresses a new technique for solving the two-dimensional steady inverse heat conduction problem, which named decentralized fuzzy inference (DFI) method. First of all, a group of decentralized fuzzy inference units are designed, and the fuzzy inference for each fuzzy inference unit is conducted which bases on the difference between the measured and the computed temperature at each measuring location. The computed temperatures are obtained by solving the direct heat conduction problem with the finite difference method. And then, inference results of fuzzy inference units are weighted to yield compensation values of the unknown boundary temperatures. The unknown boundary temperatures are estimated by updating guess temperatures continuously with compensation values. Numerical experiments are carried out with different initial guesses, the number of measuring points and measurement errors. Comparing results of DFI method and Levenberg-Marquardt (L-M) method, we can conclude that DFI method is valid. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.