A In high-speed precision machining, thermal deformation caused by temperature rise affects the accuracy stability of the machine tool to a significant extent. In order to reduce the thermal deformation of ball screws and improve the accuracy, a new adaptive method based on carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) was proposed in this study and the thermal deformation of ball screws was determined. By using the sequential coupling method, the thermal-structural coupling analysis of a ball screw was conducted based on the finite element method (FEM). The analysis results were verified through a comparison with the experimental results. Based on the verification, an FE model of the improved ball screw was established to study its thermal characteristics. The key design parameters of the improved ball screw were optimized based on the Kriging model and genetic algorithm (GA). The thermal reduction effect of the improved ball screw was validated through the experimental results. The results indicate that the adaptive method proposed in this research is effective in reducing the thermal deformation of ball screws.